


Politics and Profanity

by CynicInAFishbowl



Series: Politics and Profanity [1]
Category: Pride and Prejudice & Related Fandoms, Pride and Prejudice (1995), Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Genre: Also the occasional political scandal, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, British Politics, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Eventual hints of citrus, Exactly What It Says on the Tin, F/M, I wanted to do Australian politics but that required way too much casual c-bombing, Pride and Prejdice with a lot of swearing and a sprinkling of politics, Slight Canon Divergence, hello lake scene
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-17
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2018-09-18 04:07:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 47,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9367256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CynicInAFishbowl/pseuds/CynicInAFishbowl
Summary: A modern AU wherein Darcy has recently been elected to the House of Commons, Elizabeth is in the civil service, and unsusprisingly, there is conflict.Slight whiffs of both 'The Thick Of It' and 'Yes Minister'; and an eventual 'Darcy exiting the lake in a wet white shirt' scene, because let's be honest, that's all anyone is in this for.Additional story and relationship tags as the story progresses. Rating due to a base level of swearing which could only be described as 'Australian'. Also because there might be some lemons later on.NO LONGER ON HIATUS, BABES!





	1. In which Things are Said which Probably Oughtn't be

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got the idea for this story one afternoon as I was having tea with my good friend, memorde (check her out, she's on AO3). We then proceeded to flesh out the basis of the headcanon, this is the result. This was initially going to be a high school AU, but I was promptly slapped off of that ledge. Which in retrospect was probably a good thing.
> 
> There are a few divergences from canon, most of which will be detailed and justified on my writing blog, cynicinafishbowl.tumblr.com, but also pls follow me pls kthxbai.
> 
> I will just say that this fic was started long before the Brexit referendum was anything more than a campaign promise (and we know how rigorously politicians work to honour those), and so in an attempt not to have to try to predict the firmness or flaccidness of Brexit post-Article 50, I’m setting this in the post-Brexit years, where it’s all a terrible memory which everyone’s trying to repress. In my mind, and so in this fic, Scotland will have another referendum and vote to leave the union so that they can stay in the Eurozone, and they adopt the Euro. The rest of Britain gets roundly fucked over by the EU as Angela Merkel silently and smugly oversees the proceedings from her throne (because let’s be real, I can totally see Mutti becoming the Empress of Europe in an epic plot twist).
> 
> #TheHolyRomanEmpireStrikesBack
> 
> #Part2
> 
> #FromPrussiaWithLove

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a young man having just been elected to the Commons, must be in pursuit of the leadership.

Such a young man was always some public school graduate Oxbridge alumnus with a sizeable personal fortune and a history of either Rowing or Rugby; god complexes being an optional, but non-essential extra. Invariably they were elected from their quaint Lakes District constituencies merely because they had a good name and were conservative, puttered around Westminster for a term or two before their constituents realised how staggeringly incompetent they were, at which point they would elect someone else, and their previous member would go to work for an investment bank and make an obscene amount of money. Their constituents would have a new (soon to prove himself incompetent) member, and life would go on.

The only people for whom the poor electoral decisions of rural folk with ancestral money were a problem, were the media relations department at Westminster. At its helm, Edward Gardiner, once described by a BBC executive (who later mysteriously resigned with no warning) as ‘The Angriest Scotsman’, more often described by the front-benches (the parliamentarians with the most media exposure and thus with whom he tended to have the most contact) as a teacup Genghis Khan. His second-in-command was an Oxford graduate named Elizabeth Bennet, whose role it was (apart from her actual job of managing the media relations of Westminster) to bollocks those who were beneath Mr. Gardiner’s notice, the first-term idiots who hadn’t yet been booted out by their electorates, and those members of the cabinet who were clearly only there to bring down the average age. Generally speaking if they fell under Elizabeth’s purview and had done something public enough to warrant a bollocking, it meant that they fell in the intersection of the two circles of that figurative Venn Diagram.

It was with one such MP Elizabeth found herself faced when she was called into Mr. Gardiner’s office.

“I need you to have some words with the Minister for Youth and Unemployment.”

“The new boy from Pemberley?”

Mr. Gardiner nodded. “I assume you know what about?”

“The fact that once we’re in the Cabinet, we don’t get photographed speaking with Nigel Farage?”

“It’s his first time, so go easy on him.”

Were Elizabeth not used to how these things tended to run, she would have taken that as a gesture of magnanimity on Mr. Gardiner’s part. She was, however, used to how these things tended to run and so knew that her going easy on him was so that the next time he was bollocksed for some kind of cock up, he had no idea what hit him.

“I’ve emailed his assistant, Evelyn, so the Right Honourable Fuckwit knows you’re coming.”

Elizabeth nodded and returned to her office to change out of her flats into the heels she kept in there for bollockings. Calling ahead was another courtesy offered before a Member’s first bollocking and then never again. Better that the bollockser swoop down swiftly and unexpected, in a manner similar to a particularly brutal ambush.

Checking the list of offices on her computer, Elizabeth started off. Whereas a bollocking from Edward Gardiner was generally an exercise in shock and awe, filled with violent and imaginative profanity, Elizabeth tended to be rather more reserved in her bollockings. She rarely raised her voice, and saved the profanity for those who chose to ignore her message of ‘pull your head in and do as you’re told’. Having never met the member for Pemberley herself, she had been told he was a perfectly solid chap, albeit one with a very rigid poker shoved up his backside. Those Members were the easiest to deal with, and usually got the message reasonably quickly. There was something to be said for quasi-ancestral seats being passed down regardless of mental acuity.

Elizabeth arrived at the office she knew to be correct, only to find a man sitting at the desk leading to the Minister’s office, as opposed to the Evelyn she was expecting. She paused a moment, confused.

“Elizabeth Bennet?” he asked, standing.

“Yes.”

“Evelyn Fitzwilliam.” He offered his hand, pronouncing his name with a hard ‘e’, as one would if one were a man named Evelyn. “Pleasure to meet you. The minister is waiting for you inside.” He then opened the door for her and waved her in.

Elizabeth walked inside to find the Minister for Youth and Unemployment, the Member for Pemberley, the Right Honourable Fitzwilliam Darcy leaning against his desk, scrolling through something on his phone. Hearing Elizabeth walk in (part of the reason she had special bollocksing heels was because they made a delighfully authoritative noise as she walked), he stowed his phone, straightened and offered his hand. “Fitzwilliam Darcy.”

“Elizabeth Bennet.” Elizabeth was somewhat surprised by his looks. Generally speaking, the ancestral types had ears the size of Prince Charles’, a face like a bulldog, or, in a few markedly unfortunate cases, both. Mr. Darcy on the other hand, had won the genetic lottery. He was tall (standing 5’9 in her bollocksing heels, she could infer that he was definitely taller than six foot – his curly hair made it hard to gauge his height exactly), with broad shoulders, dark hair and eyes, and just enough stubble to give off a vibe of ‘Italian underwear model’. Not to mention the fact that his suit had clearly been tailored to him. “I assume you know why I’m here?”

“Care to enlighten me?” he enquired, his accent bitingly crisp, and his voice deeper than Elizabeth had expected.

“Traditionally Number Ten aren’t astonishingly thrilled when Cabinet members, especially the more junior ones, decide to take meetings with Nigel Farage. Number Ten is even less thrilled when those meetings take place where reporters might see them and be tempted to take photographs and subsequently publish them. In your case, I can confirm that Number Ten are not thrilled. I have been sent to dissuade you from such foolishness in the future.”

Elizabeth knew from experience that in most cases the mere mention of Number Ten not being happy (the only reason she would be sent anywhere) was enough to arouse a mix of contrition and the fear of god in whomever she was speaking with. It seemed that this was not one of those times.

“This is the first I’ve heard of that,” he replied, crossing his arms.

“That’s generally how these things work.” Elizabeth explained. “This way, if Number Ten decide that they need to jettison you for whatever reason, there is no taint of association whatsoever.”

“And you’re the one sent to tell me this because…?”

“I’m the one sent here to tell you this because I’m from Media Relations, and I’m the one whose job it apparently is to remind you of the obvious.”

“Were you hired because you were deliberately obtuse, or was that a skill you picked up on the job?” Darcy asked, leaning back to rest on his desk. “Because it would be rather more convenient for the both of us if instead of just alluding to things in an effort to increase your mystique and terrify me into compliance, you actually said what you were sent here to say.”

“You know exactly why I’m here. The fracas which followed the invocation of Article 50 is still too fresh in everyone’s memories for anyone to be even remotely ok with anyone in Government consorting with Farage. The public needs someone to blame for their country being told to lie back and think of England, and thankfully for all of us, they chose to blame some fringe lunatic instead of the idiot politician which led them to believe that anyone cared about their opinions. When people see you with that man, they assume that you were a part of their nation being very solidly rogered by Her Excellency’s functionaries, and that not only destabilises the party, but it dramatically increases the likelihood of you being aggressively demoted in the next reshuffle.”

“I wasn’t even in politics back then.”

Elizabeth laughed for a moment, in a manner which was generally described as ‘a bit witchy’. This altogether rather too self-assured gentleman was either an idealist or a halfwit. Neither boded well for his longevity in the politics. Nobody who believed in either the inherent goodwill or intelligence of the electorate ever lasted long. “You’re only in your first term, so I understand that you’re new to this. So here’s the lay of the land. You are just a chunk of meat in a suit, brought in to lower the average age of the Cabinet by a couple of decades. That’s why you made the cabinet in your first term. Not because anyone cares about your ‘ideas’ or values your ‘opinions’. You are a faceless functionary, brought in to make your government look at least marginally as if it’s ‘hip’ and ‘gives a shit about the unemployed youth who contribute net fuck all to the economy and society’. You just so happen to have been given the portfolio of Youth and Unemployment not because you’re young and might bring innovative ideas to the table, but because in any government, especially a Tory one, that is the lowest bar of Cabinet entry, and they sure as shit weren’t going to waste an experienced, or god forbid, competent, politician on the pancake of nothingness which is this department. You exist only to make your party look less old and out of touch by grace of their parading you in front of a camera every so often. It is not your place to meet with anyone with whom you have not been expressly instructed to meet. You keep your head down and do as you’re told like a dutiful lad, and maybe, just maybe, you’ll survive into a second term. Was that sufficiently specific for you?”

“I am a member of Her Majesty’s government, and I do not need to sit here and be reamed out by some civil servant.”

“Actually, that is exactly what you need to sit there and do. You do not get to make decisions, just like you don’t get to make policy suggestions, or, you know, make a legitimate contribution to the running of the country. My job is to protect the image of whichever party is in power, and that means impressing upon you that some conduct is unbecoming of a member of Her Majesty’s government. If, for whatever insane reason, anyone needs to meet with him, Number Ten will send someone disposable. Like a backbencher. Do you know why they would do that? Because backbenchers are the only life-forms in existence with less political clout or visibility than you and your department. I realise that your undoubtably public school education must have instilled in you all sorts of ideas about democritas, and libertas and civitas and fucking virtus, but this isn’t the rowing sheds at Harrow. This is government and if you ever wish to be able to slither up the greasy totem pole, you need to keep yourself useful, and to stay useful, you need to be untainted by anything which could conceivably have the identifier ‘–gate’ appended to it. If you are visible, you are likely to be seen for what you truly are, a limpet, clinging to the hull of your party, dragging it back merely by virtue of your existence.” This was, perhaps, slightly uncalled for, but Elizabeth had a point to make, and it apparently wasn’t getting through when phrased in a generally polite manner.

“I will not be lectured on what I can and cannot do as an elected representative, by some chit from the civil service who,” he looked her up and down, “has probably only just graduated from whatever red-brick institution she attended, and no doubt made it into the civil service as the result of some gross nepotism.”

There was a pause as Mr Darcy MP realised that he most definitely crossed a line which he shouldn’t have crossed, and Ms Elizabeth Bennet raised her eyebrows slightly, her face blandly polite. “Not that it in any way concerns you, but I graduated top three from my Masters in Public Policy at Oxford. I was in this job long before you decided to see how far your privilege would take you in the political sphere before you settled down to manage the family hedge fund or work in the family law firm, or do whatever the scions of the now obsolete great houses do to while away the years between university and decrepitude. This is not the first time I will have to explain to some wet behind the ears first-termer that he has a greatly inflated sense of his own importance, and I know for a fact that it won’t be the last. It will, however, be the last time that I warn you that you are about a fuck-up and a half away from languishing in the back-benches until your constituency tire of you, which they will, and boot you out in favour of the next upper-class white male to decide to make a run for your seat. If you want to have any hope of surviving in this world, which I assure you is nothing like the debating societies I have no doubt that you were involved in, despite what you told yourself, you will stop pretending that you have any agency, and start running everything you do by the department, and then maybe, just maybe, you’ll stay gaffe-free long enough to do something meaningful. I would say that it’s been a pleasure, but I think we both know that that would be a lie.”

Elizabeth turned and walked towards the door, slowly enough to allow his assistant sufficient time to convincingly pretend that he hadn’t been listening to the whole conversation. As she turned the handle, Mr Darcy spoke.

“I went to Rugby, not Harrow.”

Elizabeth opened the door, spun to face Mr. Darcy with a countenance entirely devoid of fucks, held his gaze for a moment to ensure her message was received, and exited his office, the door closing behind her. On her way out, she handed Mr Fitzwilliam her business card. “In case the Minister feels the need to keep me appraised of anything.”

Mr Fitzwilliam raised his eyebrows momentarily and took the card. “He wasn’t actually meeting with Farage, you know. Farage just sort of accosted him in the hallway, and Fitz couldn’t really extricate himself from the situation.”

Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “If that’s the case, then next time he should just, oh I don’t know, mention that fact instead of calling me ‘some chit from the civil service’ and then telling me that the only way I got this job was by way of nepotism.”

Fitzwilliam winced. “I thought I heard that, but I had hoped that was a hallucination. He can be a bit…”

“Astonishingly cunty?” Elizabeth suggested, garnering a shrug of assent.

“I’ll talk to him.”

“Thanks. He seems halfway intelligent, and maybe even competent, which means we would actually like to keep him around. Next time a right-wing nut-case tries to railroad him, tell him to be less polite and just leave.”

“It’s been educational.” Fitzwilliam said, extending his hand.

“May it never have to be educational  again.” Elizabeth countered, shaking it, and heading back to her office, only seething slightly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve always loved the people who were so British that they gave their sons girls’ names. Your Vivians, Ashleys and Evelyns. Since we never actually find out Colonel Fitzwilliam’s first name in the book, I decided to have some fun with it. I recognise that by some glorious hive-mind everyone has communally decided that the Colonel is named Richard, but I just never saw him as being a Richard. He was almost Aloysius, but the entertainment value of everyone initially thinking he’s a woman as a result of the name was just too fun to pass up.  
> Also, don’t fret. I haven’t forgotten the fact that he is a Colonel in the books. It’ll be brought in.
> 
> Finally, those who have read the works of Mungo MacCallum (probably none of you, as who has time to read quasi-comic commentary on Australian politics) will recognise the phrase ‘greasy totem pole’ from the book 'How to be a Megalomaniac, or, Advice to a Young Politician', something which it probably would have behoven Darcy to read.


	2. In which Elizabeth is filled with righteous indignation, googling takes place, and Jane has a potential beau

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jane has a new workplace crush, and Elizabeth is still pissed off with Darcy.

That evening, Elizabeth returned to the tiny flat she shared with her elder sister Jane, a newly minted surgical resident at St. ----‘s Hospital, to find Jane listening to Russian folk metal, a genre to which she had been introduced by their younger sister Mary, and to which she listened seldom.

“Interesting day at work, Jane?” Elizabeth enquired in a leading manner.

“Just surprising. And unexpected.”

“Oh yes? Do tell!”

“So we knew that some hotshot Plastics guy was headhunted over, after he’d spent a year and a half in southeast Asia doing cleft palate surgeries on little kids with MSF; long story short, he…” Jane seemed lost for words.

“That attractive?” asked Elizabeth, attempting to prompt further explanation. A fine looking young doctor did not explain why Jane was streaming Arkona as they spoke.

“Well, yes, obviously, but irrelevant at present. I had made a pot of tea during my break, and I was sitting in the sun, drinking tea, and he sat down next to me and started talking to me, aaaaand then he asked me out.”

“And this is surprising, why?” Elizabeth enquired, hushing her sister when she moved to reply. “You’re a brilliant doctor, you’re sweet, and kind, and beautiful, and he’d have been a moron not to. So two questions, when’s the date, and what does he look like. And what’s his name. Three questions.”

Jane reached for her phone and opened Facebook. “His name is Charles Bingley. We’re going out tomorrow, and this,” she handed over the phone, “is what he looks like.”

Elizabeth scrutinised the photograph for a moment before handing it back to her sister. “He’s cute. A bit blonde, but that’s just me. And tomorrow?”

“Our schedules are necessarily shit what with the whole doctor thing. And it’s not a date so much as I’m just having dinner at his house. Well, his sister’s house, because he just got back to London and is in the process of looking for an apartment.”

“That’s great, Jane,” Elizabeth said, taking her laptop out of her handbag and setting it on the kitchen table to check her email.

“Anything exciting happen on your end?” Jane asked.

Elizabeth straightened, her earlier ire returning. “The minister for Youth and Unemployment referred to me as ‘some chit’,” she snapped.

“He what?!” Jane asked, shocked.

“And then,” Elizabeth continued, “he said that the only way I could have gotten my job was as a result of nepotism.”

Jane looked absolutely scandalised. Jane was absolutely scandalised. Jane, unlike a number of the characters in this story, was an inherently good person. “That’s horrible. Are you alright? Why would he say something like that?”

Elizabeth shrugged. “I may have said some hurtful things regarding his relative importance in the cabinet and the government,” she said, with some contrition.

“Oh you did, did you.”

“HE CALLED ME ‘SOME CHIT’,” Elizabeth protested with an increase of volume, outrage and fervency.

“Which was undoubtedly unacceptable, but Lizzie. You know that politicians are fragile creatures who don’t like to be reminded that they know nothing and have no real power should the civil service turn from them. You probably terrified the poor lad.”

“Well he could have opened with the fact that he wasn’t actually meeting with Farage, instead of getting all defensive from the get-go. I was going to go easy on him because it was his first time being yelled at.”

“That’s who he is,” Jane exclaimed, “the new Minister who was photographed speaking with The Dark One. I knew his portfolio sounded familiar. I saw something written about that.”

“Jane,” Lizzie complained, “you’re not really reacting correctly. Who refers to anyone as ‘some chit’? This isn’t the Regency. Who even uses ‘chit’ as a word any more?”

“So your complaint is not with what he said, but in fact with the way in which he said it?”

“Obviously my complaint is with what he said, but given that I may have provoked him into it, I’m focusing on the way it was said, because that was entirely on him.”

Jane made a noise which in a woman of less poise and elegance could have been characterised as a snort. “So what’s your read of him? The latest in a long line of incompetent sons of landed gentry, or might this one actually go somewhere?”

Elizabeth stretched her arms over her head and regarded Jane. “It’s hard to say. He seems intelligent, and he might even prove competent. I just think he’s a bit too… he hasn’t learned to pull his head in. If he learns to keep quiet and behave himself, I can see him leading the party in ten to fifteen years. He might actually do a good job of it. But if he doesn’t stop attracting attention, they’ll boot him the moment they notice he’s making a move.”

“Did you share this insight with him?”

“In a manner,” Elizabeth replied, with the utmost vagueness.

“In what manner, precisely?” Jane enquired, eyebrow raised.

“The gist of it may have been touched upon,” came the slow reply.

Jane rolled her eyes. “I’ll bet it was. You don’t think he’d be less likely to re-cock-up if you were to just explain to him the lay of the land?”

“Don’t misunderstand me. The lay of the land was laid out in no uncertain terms. I may not have mentioned that I could see him getting the leadership in a decade or so merely because if he has even the smallest skerrick of ambition, it’s a thought he’s already had, and he doesn’t need me inflating his ego any more than it already is. Perhaps if he hadn’t seemed quite so… smug, I might have said it in a slightly less caustic manner. Oh hello!” Elizabeth clicked on an email.

“Hmmm?”

“In the midst of my ranting today I  mentioned something along the lines of ‘you don’t do anything unless it’s been cleared by me.’ And here he has emailed me with his agenda for tomorrow. I didn’t think he’d actually listen.”

“Perhaps there’s hope for him yet.” Jane remarked with a smile, taking their dinner from the oven and glancing at Elizabeth’s laptop screen. “Fitzwilliam Darcy… he’s that short one from ----shire isn’t he.”

“No.” Elizabeth closed her laptop and went to set the table for the two of them. “That was Richard Forster. The one with the unfortunate ears. Darcy is the member for Pemberley, and I must say, an attractive one. All tall and shoulders and voice and face and hair.”

“I would ask if you had a crush, but he called you a chit, and so you were merely taking stock of his physical presence, and there was no appreciation whatsoever.”

“Not ‘a chit’. He called me ‘some chit’. I don’t know why, but that’s subtly worse.”

Jane gave her sister a bland look, which was returned.

 

By about ten the next morning, Elizabeth realised that Darcy had not taken the intended message away from their meeting. This realisation came by way of the five emails he had sent her by then, amending his schedule in some insignificant manner. By the end of the day, and another seventeen emails, she was sure that he was having his revenge by inundating her with as much minutiae as he could throw at her. Knowing, thanks to his incessant emailing, that he would not be in his office, she walked towards it, hoping to see Mr Fitzwilliam. He was indeed there, and seemed surprised to see her.

“Miss Bennett. To what do I owe the pleasure?” Fitzwilliam asked as she entered the room. A moment later, having seen her expression, he continued, “Wait. Fitz hasn’t been flooding you with emails keeping you updated as to every tiny amendment to his schedule, in an attempt to mete out some kind of schoolyard vengeance, has he?”

“That and sending me the occasional synopsis of a particularly interesting something which happens to be in one of his red boxes.”

Fitzwilliam rolled his eyes. “Would I be correct in surmising that you could probably use a drink?” he asked, opening the door to Darcy’s office and waving her in. “I can offer you scotch, sherry, or bourbon.”

“Bourbon?”

“He acquired a taste for it whilst on an internship in America.”

“Scotch, thank you.”

“Have a seat, Elizabeth. May I call you Elizabeth?”

“Only if I may call you Evelyn.”

“By all means, Elizabeth, otherwise our following conversation about Fitz is going to be far too confusing.” Elizabeth sank into one of the armchairs in the office and accepted the drink Fitzwilliam handed her, murmuring thanks and taking a sip. “So how many emails did he send you?” Fitzwilliam asked, before cutting her off. “No, no, don’t tell me. Twenty?”

“Twenty-two. Twenty-three if you count the one he sent last night.”

“Christ. And I assume that diligence meant that you actually read them all.”

“Indeed it did,” Elizabeth confirmed, “although every so often there was some interesting bit of statistical analysis from a research paper. Or in one case, a picture of a cat as an attachment labelled ‘virus virus Trojan horse plz open plz’.”

“And you opened it?” Fitzwilliam chuckled.

“Of course I opened it. If the computer defences aren’t up to any viruses I’m sent, it’s better that we know about it as soon as possible.”

“So I take it from your visits that you think Fitz has potential in the long run?”

“What on earth do you mean?” Elizabeth prevaricated.

“If you thought him nothing but a passing nuisance, you wouldn’t be bothering yourself with talking to his assistant after he spent the day annoying you after you reamed him for what was, admittedly, not his fault, but, as I pointed out, something which he probably should have explained from the outset, instead of saying inappropriate things to people with arguably more political clout than him. If you thought he didn’t have staying power, you would just let him run his course, and breathe a sigh of relief when he was replaced and went to work for some top tier law firm.”

“You’ve really thought this through, haven’t you?”

“It’s my job to think these things through. If I didn’t think Fitz could go all the way, I would be spending my leisure hours looking for more permanent jobs. Instead, I spend my leisure hours conversing with lovely ladies such as yourself,” he pointed out with a slight inclination of his head.

“Darcy’s problem isn’t that he’s stupid or even bad at politics from what I’ve seen. His problem is that he’s too… I don’t know… idealistic. If he weren’t, he would realise that things are less about actually running the country and more about climbing the greasy totem pole. I mean for heaven’s sake. It’s youth and unemployment.”

“Surely you don’t mean to say that some portfolios are more important than others. Miss Elizabeth, I am shocked,” exclaimed Fitzwilliam in a tone which implied that he was anything but.

“You might very well think that,” Elizabeth paused in her response to take a drink, “but I couldn’t possibly comment.”

Fitzwilliam chuckled. In response to Elizabeth’s curious look, he said “You know, if you were a bit taller, and significantly more Tory, you’d be exactly his type. And before you start getting all sardonic, I am in no way implying that that is at all your intent.”

Elizabeth, entirely ready to reply with something sardonic, after all, she had hardly come to Westminister to secure some rich, conservative husband, instead burst into laughter. “And what, pray tell, was the sample size from which you drew this conclusion?”

“I will admit that my scientific method was somewhat less than rigorous.”

Elizabeth glanced at her watch, and saw that she had another forty minutes until Darcy was due to return to pick up his red boxes for the evening. As such, she was more than slightly surprised to look up from her watch to see him walk into his office. He looked, quite rightly, somewhat confused. “You’re not meant to be back for another forty minutes, Minister. You’ve been quite diligent in that respect haven’t you?” she pointed out.

“I emailed you from the car.”

Elizabeth pulled out her phone and saw that that was indeed the case. Standing, she excused herself. “Indeed you did. Evelyn, it has been a pleasure. Minister, that cat picture was most droll.”

As she left, she heard Darcy ask “What was that about?”

Fitzwilliam’s response of “You being a prat,” made her smile as she walked back to her department, where promptly was she greeted by Mr Gardiner. “Where the fuck were you?”

“Drinking scotch with the assistant to the person whom I’m pretty sure just became my nemesis.”

“I’m sorry fucking I asked,” he muttered as he stalked off.

Waiting for her, when she arrived at her computer, were three emails. The one Darcy had sent from the car, updating his schedule, along with a second, newer, email; and one from Mr Fitzwilliam. She clicked on it.

_Elizabeth,_

_You must come for another chat some time soon. Fitz keeps you pretty well informed of his comings and goings, and I’m invariably always around._

_I feel that our chat this afternoon was cut short._

_Yours &c,_

_Evelyn_

Attached to the email was a virtual business card with his details. A smile playing across her features, she opened the newest email from Darcy.

            _Ms Bennet,_

_I hope that my correspondence today has been of a satisfactory level of detail. I have attached my agenda for tomorrow._

_Regards,_

_Fitzwilliam Darcy, MP_

Elizabeth rolled her eyes. If he wanted to continue on this line of childish behaviour, that was entirely his prerogative. With her work done for the day, she packed her things into her bag and made her way home. It was only when she arrived, to find Jane absent (in her being flooded with unnecessary details of Darcy’s schedule, she had forgotten the altogether more relevant fact of Jane having a date). Elizabeth made herself some eggs, opened her laptop, and poured herself some wine.

Having an evening to herself, without the risk of Jane seeing what she was googling and reproaching her for it, Elizabeth opened Chrome and typed ‘Fitzwilliam Darcy’ into the search bar. The first couple of results were official governmental sites, a number of news entries, including the one for which she had been sent to disabuse him, something from a law firm website, and a number of other results which offered no insight into the gentleman. It was on the third page of results that she found something interesting. An obscure Cambridge publication showed a photograph of a young Darcy along with two young men and a young woman, and the caption ---- College University Challenge Team.

Elizabeth very nearly spat out the wine she had just imbibed. Here was Darcy, unmistakeably, but over a decade ago. He couldn’t have been older than nineteen, and he was still in the throes of boyhood, his body seeming too tall for his frame, as if he had just completed a growth spurt, which, she supposed, he probably had. Armed with a new search phrase, she returned to Google.

She had barely opened the first video when she opened her email to see if Fitzwilliam had seen fit to include his mobile phone number in his set of details. Elizabeth was delighted to see that he had. She typed the number into her phone and dialled.

“This is Evelyn.”

“Evelyn. Hullo. This is Elizabeth Bennet.”

“Elizabeth! To what do I owe this delight? I hope Fitz hasn’t been pestering you.”

Elizabeth laughed. “No more than the usual. Although it is about him that I called.”

“Oh really?” Fitzwilliam said, with some real intrigue in his voice. “Do go on.”

“I was doing some googling,”

“Of course.”

“I can sense judgement, and I will not have it.”

“Not at all. Please continue.”

“I found a video of Darcy as some lanky teenager on Univeristy Challenge.”

Fitzwilliam let out a hoot of laughter. “I’d no idea that was on the internet. Hang on.” Elizabeth heard some shuffling and then frenzied typing, followed by another hoot of laughter. “I am so glad you called. I was making do with occasionally recalling it and chuckling. I never even thought to see if someone had uploaded it. That has absolutely made my evening. I’m going to spend hours making GIFs of this just so that I can send them to him at inopportune moments.”

“Surely you have better things to do with your time,” Elizabeth protested.

“Indeed I do not, for you see, unlike you, I am wildly unqualified for this position and very much did get the job entirely through nepotism. I take phone calls when he’s out of the office, but let’s be entirely honest, Fitz doesn’t need me around. A partially trained chimpanzee could do my job. He hired me because I was an unemployed cousin with a degree in maths so pure that numbers weren’t even involved any more, which of course meant that my job prospects were infinite, and he happened to need a glorified receptionist, and since we always got along well as lads, he gave me the job.”

“Don’t sell yourself short. You could engage in the vicious cycle of academia and teach bright-eyed young things skills which are wholly unusable in the real world so that they too can’t get jobs and so go into academia.”

“If I could tolerate youths, then maybe, but ugh, can you imagine?”

“I hate to break it to you, Evelyn, but if they’re at university reading pure maths, I can guarantee that they are about as far from being ‘youths’ as is humanly possible.”

“Excuse you, Miss Elizabeth, I will have you know that there was many a debauched escapade as we dealt with n-dimensional hypercubes.”

“I’m sure.”

“Tell you what, once the GIFs are done, I’ll send you a couple for your own amusement.”

“You are a prince among men,” Elizabeth informed him.

“I know. Feel free to drop by any time Fitz is out of the office, or indeed whenever he isn’t. I’m finding that I enjoy our chats, and nothing worries Fitz more than me chatting about him with terrifying women.”

“It’s been a pleasure, as always.”

Elizabeth marvelled at how someone could be so resolutely upper-class, and then read anything other than Classics at university.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Keen-eyed readers may notice an inordinate amount of flirting between Lizzie and Fitzwilliam. This is because in my mind, had Lizzie met Fitzwilliam earlier in the story, they would have ended up together. I'll go into more detail on this subject in the blog post which will accompany the next chapter.


	3. in which brunch is had, and unfortunate internet presences are gone over

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Elizabeth laments her pitiable Instagram following, Darcy discovers why he oughtn't entrust the setup of his personal electronics to others, and some new characters are introduced.

Saturday presently arrived, and as was her habit, Elizabeth met for brunch with her particular friend, Charlotte Lucas. Their fathers had been in the Commons together, but unlike the majority of children thrust together because their parents were friends, the two women found that they actually enjoyed each other’s company and remained in close contact over the years.

As usual, Elizabeth arrived first and chose a table, and presently saw Charlotte enter, only to be accosted by a couple of teenage girls asking for selfies. When Charlotte reached her table, Elizabeth leaned back and crossed her arms. “One shoutout from you and I would be instafamous.”

Charlotte raised a perfectly maintained eyebrow. “My demographic have literally no interest in the running of a government.”

“Your demographic could do well to learn a little more about how governments work.”

“Maybe if you posted more than once every three months, I’d consider it.”

Elizabeth stuck out her tongue. “Nice work in Vogue.”

“How did you know?”

“I have a google alert set up for your name. Also Maria told me. And then Mary sent me the photos.”

“Thanks. So how’s work? Anything new going on?”

“Apart from having to deal with continual cock-ups? No.”

“Any particularly interesting cock-ups?” Charlotte asked after they ordered.

Elizabeth drew breath. “Well. After the new minister for Youth and Unemployment--”

Charlotte interrupted her by snorting.

“I know,” Elizabeth continued, “not a real portfolio and all that. Anyway, after he got photographed with Farage, I was sent to go and yell at him, and the idiot fought back. So I said a number of hurtful things…”

“As is your way.”

“And then he called me ‘some chit from the civil service’…”

“Do people actually use the word ‘chit’ these days?” Charlotte interrupted.

“Well clearly they do, anyway, I said a few more hurtful things, and now I think I have a nemesis.”

“A nemesis?”

“A nemesis.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, Lizzie. This isn’t an episode of Gossip Girl. Nobody has nemeses in real life.”

“Ok, Char. Firstly, you weren’t there. Secondly, the books were infinitely better than that absolute garbage fire that they called the show, and I resent you even bringing up that travesty. Thirdly, you haven’t been the one he keeps flooding with bullshit emails interspersed with the occasional picture of a cat. Finally, his assistant is pretty cute, although he’s of the level of upperclass when it’s hard to tell if he’s astonishingly gay or just posh.”

Charlotte looked up from her phone for a moment. “A cute assistant? Do go on!”

“His cousin or something. Has a degree in pure maths.”

“Why?”

Elizabeth shrugged. “We’ve been talking, and he’s quite diverting.”

“I’ll bet he is…” Charlotte murmured, scrolling through something on her phone. “Name?”

“Evelyn Fitzwilliam. Don’t bother facebook stalking him, either he’s not on there or his privacy settings are impenetrable.”

“Pity. Got any photos then?”

Elizabeth gave her friend a look which asked ‘why the fuck would I have photographs of a man I barely know in a professional context, let alone outside of one, and with whom I have been acquainted for less than a week, because otherwise you would have heard of this sooner’. Charlotte replied with a look which said ‘I expected better from you.’

“Say, the Minister’s pretty attractive if you’re into conventionally handsome men with the look of Italian underwear models who wear impeccably cut suits,” Charlotte commented, showing Lizzie the photographs she had been scrolling through while Lizzie had been talking.

“The Minister is astonishingly attractive, and has a very nice voice to boot. Unfortunately, he is a complete arse, not to mention the very definition of the Patriarchy, and also a Tory. Papa would never approve,” she finished primly.

“But Papa wouldn’t find objection with his no doubt equally Tory assistant?”

“Oh relax, Charlotte, I wasn’t considering fraternising with him.”

“The Minister or his assistant?”

“Either.”

“I’m sure you weren’t,” Charlotte agreed in a voice which, I’m sure the readers will surmise, implied nothing of the sort.

* * *

 

 

Meanwhile, in an immaculately appointed breakfast room in an imacculately appointed house in an excellent part of London, the subjects of that conversation were, unsurprisingly, given the room they occupied, breakfasting.

“Fitz…”

“Yes?”

“Why is it that when I unlocked your phone and opened your facebook I found that you were stalking the profile of a certain woman?”

“Evelyn…”

“Yes?”

“How is it that you were able to unlock my phone?”

“Because you were too busy getting prodigiously fucked during Question Time to spend a few hours setting it up, and so knowing that you hate fingerprint activation and so would never use it, I set it to my fingerprint. Which, before you even bother, is not something you can change until you get a new phone.”

Darcy didn’t expend the effort of responding, because he had to admit that that was an impressive level of deviousness.

“Christ, Evelyn. That’s got to be some kind of security breach,” said a woman seated to his right, through a bite of pastry.

Fitzwilliam shrugged. “I like to think that if anything should come of it, I’m well enough connected to get away alright.” He paused for a moment. “Say, Caroline, where is Charles?”

Caroline took her time taking a sip of tea and presently attended the conversation. “Charles is at work, or making eyes at his new girlfriend, or probably both. We can return to him later. Who is this certain woman you were alluding to? I must hear everything.”

“It’s nothing,” Darcy said sharply.

“Well then, now I truly am intrigued. Who is this woman?”

“A civil servant from the media department, who was sent to upbraid Fitz for making the mistake of allowing himself to be photographed next to a crackpot. She seemed to make quite a lasting impression on him.”

“Well come on, don’t leave me hanging,” Caroline instructed, “show me photographs.”

“Pass me your phone, Darcy,” Fitzwilliam said.

Darcy responded a particularly rude hand gesture. “Use your own phone.”

“You know full well that mine doesn’t have facebook on it, and Caroline’s isn’t set up to unlock when I show it my fingerprint.”

Darcy rolled his eyes and handed over the requested item. Fitzwilliam presently unlocked it, opened Facebook, and handed it to Caroline, who took the phone and flicked through the photographs. “Elizabeth Bennet,” she said, scrolling. “She really hasn’t gone the aggressive security route.”

“All the better for Fitz to stalk her with,” Fitzwilliam smirked.

After a moment more, she looked up, made aggressive eye-contact with Darcy and drawled, “Why she looks to be exactly your type.”

“She’s a bit short,” Fitzwilliam chipped in. “And that’s stepping past the fact that she’s a bit left wing. And also the first time they met, he referred to her as, and I shit you not, ‘some chit’, to her face, so I don’t really see things ever happening betwixt the two of them.”

Darcy glared at his audience.

“You said what?” Caroline asked, looking up from her scrolling with a very disapproving glance.

“It was not my finest hour,” Darcy admitted grudgingly.

“I probably ought to note that she also seems rather your type, E,” Caroline continued to drawl, returning to the screen.

Fitzwilliam leaned back in his chair in an affectedly louche manner. “She’s certainly, to quote Fitz, tolerable enough, but she’s slightly terrifying.”

“Oh don’t be a weak bitch,” Caroline insisted, returning Darcy’s phone to him.

“And how about you, Caroline?” Fitzwilliam asked, a wicked glint in his eyes, and in a most unctuous tone. “How’s the love life?”

“Shocking, as always, thanks for asking,” Caroline replied with a flick of her hair. “Every time I try dating another DJ I’m reminded that they’re all insipid little morons, and that’s why I don’t date them.”

“So find yourself a nice lawyer.”

“How on earth would I happen to find myself in the path of a nice lawyer?”

“I seem to recall you gaining a degree in that general subject, and then throwing it all away to become a DJ. It’s not too late to, oh I don’t know, use your law degree to be a lawyer, rather than to simply negotiate your own contracts.”

“Evelyn, _darling_ , my parents have been trying that line of argumentation on me for years. What makes you think it’d work coming from you?”

Fitzwilliam shrugged. “I suppose it was worth a shot.”

Caroline sighed. “If I were still in the closet, I could just marry Darcy. That would be so much easier.”

Darcy decided that it was time to attempt to get in on the conversation. “I am actually in the room. What makes you think that I’d be interested in marrying the closeted lawyer sister of an old friend?”

Caroline laughed, light and bell-like, with a swish of her hair which she had practiced painstakingly until it looked effortless when caught on camera. “I’ll have you know that I would be the perfect politician’s wife. I’m old enough money for the Party not to be horrified when you eventually make that bid for the leadership which we all know is coming; there’s nothing contentious about being a lawyer; we photograph excellently well together; and most importantly, we both know that you have better things to do than engage in trivialities like enjoying human contact. Which is why I would be ideal. I would exist literally only for photo-ops.” It was an oft-rehashed discussion, and had been ever since Darcy, seeing that she would be a most advantageous match, had asked her out that one time, and she had informed him, in a very straightforward manner, that she wasn’t really into the whole ‘penis thing’. “Alas, it is now a little too well known that I frequent the lady train,” she sighed.

“That and the fact that ‘popular DJ/recording artist’ doesn’t have quite the same cachet as, say, distinguished lawyer’, beloved of society,” Darcy pointed out.

Caroline made a non-committal noise, as if to indicate that she could see the potential merit in what he was saying, but wasn’t quite sure she agreed with him. “Say, Darcy, is Georgiana showing any indications of being interested in women?”

“Not lately. If that should change, I will be sure to let you know.”

“I’d have hoped that she’d let me know herself,” Caroline sighed, before changing the subject a moment later. “Oh, fun fact!”

“Enlighten us,” Fitzwilliam invited.

“I’ve finally landed on the final iteration of my stage name.” The menfolk at the table raised their eyebrows. “I’m switching from DJ Carolinnaea to DJ Carolinnæa.”

There was a pause before Darcy spoke. “They sound exactly the same,” he ventured with some hesitation, wondering what terrifying explanation awaited him.

“It’s all in the spelling, Fitz. Instead of ending in a-e-a, it now goes double-n-smushy-ae-letter-a.”

There was another, longer, pause before Darcy finally responded with “Why?”

“Why not? I was bored, and now I’m teaching the little fan-children about the existence of alternative letter forms.”

“Should you really be using an aesc in your stage name if you don’t even know what the character is called?” Fitzwilliam mused.

“That’s what it’s called!” Caroline exclaimed, delighted. “I knew I’d heard the name of it before, but I didn’t want to have to google ‘smushy ae letter’.”

“I still don’t understand why you went with that name,” Darcy commented.

“Everybody loves a good Botany pun, do they not?” Caroline responded.

Darcy and Fitzwilliam just gazed at her blankly, until Fitzwilliam eventually remarked, drily even by his standards, “No, not really.”

Caroline shrugged. “So it’s just me. No matter. I think it’s bloody hilarious.”

* * *

 

Returning now to the original setting of this chapter, our heroine and her friend were of the habit of spending those few Saturday afternoons they were both free watching movies and drinking immoderate amounts of wine. That afternoon, it was Elizabeth’s turn to host. Once they were comfortably ensconced in her and Jane’s apartment, Elizabeth fetched the first bottle of wine while Charlotte laid out the cheese platter.

Having poured them both glasses, Elizabeth placed her laptop on the table and faced Charlotte. “We have two options this afternoon. We can rewatch the BBC Wives and Daughters for the umpteenth time, OR,” she grinned wolfishly, “we can watch a series of university challenge from thirteen years ago, which stars a weedy nineteen year old Fitzwilliam Darcy, MP.”

Charlotte very nearly snorted wine out her nose. “I knew the man annoyed you, but I had no idea you were casually stalking him.”

“I’m not casually stalking him!” Elizabeth was most affronted. “I was engaging in some in-depth research on an up-and-coming new MP, and I happened upon some televisual evidence of his awkward teenage years. It would be remiss of me to not watch it.”

“You’re pathetic. If I didn’t know you better, I’d think you had a crush.”

Elizabeth leaned back into the cushions of the sofa. “I will admit that he is wildly attractive. Absolutely edible. Disgustingly lickable.”

“Steady on.”

“Have you seen him?”

“You know I’m not really a fan of the peen.”

“I know that, but even objectively, you have to admit that the man is attractive.”

“I’ll give you that. It doesn’t explain why you’re watching a quiz show he was on over a decade ago.”

“It came highly recommended by Evelyn.”

“Oh yes! The cute assistant/cousin of whose proclivities you are unsure. Invite him over! I’ll tell you his proclivities.”

“Charlotte!”

“It was worth a try,” Charlotte laughed, “but at least tell me that you will be messaging him while you watch what he recommended. Live-blogging it if you will.”

“Oh Lord, why?”

“I understand, dear Lizzie, that you’re practically married to your job, but that in no way explains why you have literally no understanding of how flirting works these days.”

“You flatter me, Charlotte, for I am sure that I never had any understanding of flirting to begin with.”

“That is nobody’s fault but your own. You yourself said that he was cute. From what you’ve told me of your interactions, it seems like he’s flirting. Why should the two of you not engage in a little bit of flirtation? Also, I want to meet this man.”

“You are insufferable. And I take it that your vote is to watch the University Challenge episodes.”

“Indeed it is, because you are in no way obsessing over some guy from work.”

Elizabeth made a rude hand gesture at her friend and opened the waiting youtube window.

They were most of the way through the second round, and halfway through their second bottle of wine, when Jane appeared, kissing them both on the cheek in greeting. Elizabeth hit pause, and regarded her sister. “And where have you been?” she asked, only slightly sloshily.

“Work,” Jane answered.

“So that’s what the kids are calling it these days?”

Jane flushed, and Charlotte flailed with delight. “Oh my god, when Lizzie said you had a new love interest, I thought she was just trying to deflect from the fact that she’s obsessing over some men. Some Tory men.” Charlotte giggled. “I am absolutely delighted. This is all so deliciously dramatic.”

“I was actually at work,” Jane protested, “I was called in on my day off, because junior doctors are treated like scum.”

“Was your new man-friend there?” Elizabeth asked.

“He may have been,” Jane prevaricated, before flushing again, “he’s really lovely.”

“When do we get to meet him?” wondered Elizabeth.

“It hasn’t even been a week. I don’t think he’s quite ready to meet the family.”

“You want to be a bit more sure of his affections before you inflict us upon him?”

“That certainly entered into it.” She sat down and took a swig from the bottle. “What are you watching?”

“Elizabeth found some videos of her workplace nemesis’ appearances on University Challenge,” Charlotte answered before Elizabeth could.

“Oooooh! Show me, show me!” Elizabeth and Charlotte moved over to make room for Jane, who eventually exclaimed, “Oh my god, what an adorable little man-child!”

“He’s even better looking now,” Charlotte added, nodding at Elizabeth, “if I didn’t know better, I’d be inclined to believe that she has a bit of a crush.”

“Oh?” Jane enquired, “this is news!”

“Charlotte is full of shit,” Elizabeth refuted, unconvingingly.

“It gets better, Janey,” Charlotte continued, “because if I’m not much mistaken, his cousin/assistant/resident maths genius has a bit of a thing for her, and she either can’t or won’t do anything about it,” there was a slight pause, where Charlotte engaged in a charged sip worthy of a bond villain, “so I’ve been messaging him on her behalf,” she concluded, holding up Elizabeth’s phone.

Elizabeth gasped, and then pounced on her friend, finally wresting her phone from Charlotte’s clutches, and reading through the text history, before leaning back and regarding her friend. “Firstly, fuck you. Secondly, I’d say ‘fuck your mother’ if I did not hold your mother in such high regard,”

“I’ll pass that on,” Charlotte commented before Elizabeth continued.

“I must, however, admit that I’m impressed. You’re good at this. Of course I must now admit that my friend stole my phone.”

“You will do no such thing!”

“Why not? It’s the truth!”

“Because if indeed he is interested in you, that could be construed as rather artful flirting, and you admitting it wasn’t you is tantamount to saying that you aren’t interested; and if indeed he isn’t interested in you, then that is merely you sharing a giggle at the expense of a mutual acquaintance, and to admit that a friend saw fit to message him on your behalf implies that you’re interested. So either way, you’re welcome.”

Elizabeth had to accept that her friend was correct. She also had to accept that her friend was considerably better at flirting than she. And so she carried on where Charlotte had left on, doing her best to replicate the style of the missives, as Jane described her new beau to Charlotte, and Charlotte engaged in the facebook stalking she had been unable to enjoy when introduced to the idea of Evelyn Fitzwilliam, and so a delightful afternoon was had by all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're wondering why I changed things in the way I did, or just want some further insight into the Kafka-esque farce which masquerades as my 'writing process', pootle along to my writing blog at tumblr.com/cynicinafishbowl


	4. In which tragic backstories are brought to light, and apologies are attempted.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And so we finally find out all about Fitzwilliam's involvement with the military. Also featured: Darcy being all repressed and formal a.k.a. the best form of Darcy.

The following Monday, Elizabeth had plans to meet with Fitzwilliam for coffee before they began their respective days work. While the initial plan, formulated with much guidance from Charlotte, had been for them to sit looking out on the river, the delightful English weather decided to assert itself at that juncture, and the resulting downpour made that plan impossible. And so it was that Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam found themselves in Darcy’s office, considerably dampened in body, although not in spirit.

They removed their sodden overgarments, and sat in the armchairs next to the (alas, strictly ornamental, health and safety regulations frowned upon open fires near politicians) fireplace. As Elizabeth removed her now rather damp flats and tucked her feet beneath her, Fitzwilliam crossed one leg over the other, seemed to think better of it, and then scratched his left leg absently.

“Are you sure you’re alright? You got absolutely drenched out there,” Fitzwilliam pointed out.

“I was neither more nor less drenched than yourself,” Elizabeth countered, “should I not be asking you if you’re alright?”

“We may have been equally drenched, Elizabeth, but unlike yours, my hair does not retain great masses of moisture,” he indicated, with a flick of the wrist his hair, which showed a crisp crew cut, and then hers, which had retained most of the moisture visited upon it, before again scratching his leg.

Elizabeth felt her hair in accession to his point, and rooted around an internal pocket of her handbag before emerging triumphant, clutching a hair elastic. In a few moments she had her hair twisted up into an effortlessly chic messy bun (she reminded herself to thank Charlotte for drilling her until she had mastered the hairstyle), and she looked across at Fitzwilliam, making an expansive gesture which lay somewhere between ‘Are you not entertained?’ and ‘There, all better’; just as, with a murmured “Excuse me,” Fitzwilliam reached down, grasped his left leg by the calf and knee, and twisted sharply, pulling it off.

“WHAT THE FUCK!?” Elizabeth shouted, all thoughts of composure entirely flown from her head.

“Oh. Yes. Sorry. Surprise?” Fitzwilliam said, in a manner which implied that he wasn’t overly concerned by her reaction, before taking a folded handkerchief from a pocket of his waistcoat and using it to dry the inside of his prosthetic. By way of explanation, he offered “It gets horrifically itchy when water gets in.”

“What the fuck?” Elizabeth enquired again, albeit in a more composed manner.

Fitzwilliam shrugged. “Military,” he said, by way of explanation.

“‘Military’ does not explain why you seem to be missing the majority of your left leg,” Elizabeth pointed out, placing a hand on her chest, where her heart was still beating faster than usual as a result of the adrenaline rush occasioned by the person she was having coffee with casually removing a limb. “That was entirely unexpected,” she said with a shocked exhalation of breath.

“You seem shocked,” Fitzwilliam noted.

“You seemed to detach your leg from your body. It took my brain a second to catch up with the fact that you probably weren’t casually dismembering yourself,” Elizabeth said archly, before taking a sip of her cappuccino.

“My sincere apologies,” Fitzwilliam offered in a tone which was clearly insincere.

“If I may ask… How did…” Elizabeth cast about for a tactful way to ask the question she so wanted to ask.

“How did I come to be missing the majority of my left leg?” Fitzwilliam enquired. Receiving a look from Elizabeth which said ‘Fucking duh, what else could I possibly be asking about?’, he leaned back in his chair with a sigh. “After I graduated with honours in pure maths, which is possibly the only degree less likely to result in employment than a degree in classical piano performance, I did what the unemployed young men of my family had been doing for generation after generation, and joined the military. With my higher education, I started off as a Lieutenant. Back in the day, I would have purchased a commission in some ancient and glorious regiment, probably the Coldstream Guards, maybe the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, but, of late, the military has had this weird thing about wanting competence and experience in their officers, rather than just good names and decent family fortunes,” an expansive shrug, “and so having a couple of degrees in mathematics, I figured I may as well go for the Corps of Royal Engineers. I ended up being trained for bomb disposal, because I expressed interest and had excellent fine motor control. I made it to captain after three years, and was well on my way to making Major when my leg got blown to shit and I was discharged.”

Seeing Elizabeth staring at him with a look that fairly screamed ‘You’d better start feeding me specifics, or I’m going to take your prosthetic leg and bludgeon you to death with it,’ and so he obliged her. “As for how I specifically came to lose the leg, rather than merely how I came to be in the circumstances which precipitated the need for its removal, we were called in to deal with some unexploded ordinance. As I approached, it exploded. Shattered the bones in my lower leg and basically liquefied my knee. There was no way they could have pinned it all back together. I was lucky they were able to save as much of my femur as they did. I, thankfully, was unconscious for all of this, my body having decided that it couldn’t deal with the pain. I’ve got photos of the x-rays, if you want to see?” he offered with a bright smile.

“I’ll not turn that down,” Elizabeth replied, before being handed the phone which contained the photographs, and blanching. It looked like a cartoon of a broken bone. Everything was completely shattered. “Christ on a bicycle made of lava,” she breathed, “that is bloody horrific.”

“Yes it was,” Fitzwilliam agreed, taking the phone and flicking to a scan focussing on what had apparently previously been a knee, and handing it back to Elizabeth. “I woke up in a hospital, missing a good chunk of a rather major limb, and no real memory as to why or how. I was filled in on the particulars later by my men,” another shrug, “but that was the end of my active military career. Fitz got himself elected just as I finished my rehab and was released back into society, which is how he came to find me reasonably unemployed, and why he offered me this delightfully cushy position, which is actually perfect, as it allows me the spare time required to train Cadets. Apparently I’m up for promotion to Colonel, which is, incidentally, the rank I probably would have started with, had I had the option of just purchasing a commission.”

“So when you described yourself as having been unemployed as a result of your choice of degree, and gaining this position out of nepotism, what you in fact meant to say was that you were grievously wounded on the battlefield, defending queen and country?”

“I was entirely telling the truth” the gentleman scoffed, “with my experience, the only occupation available to me would have been defence consulting, which, given the fact that I don’t even entirely understand what consulting is, probably wouldn’t have been the best idea, and I was wildly unqualified for this position. Tragic military backstory aside, I still got this job by way of the grossest nepotism.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, E,” Darcy said from the doorway, walking in with his red boxes from the night before, placing them on his desk, and then leaning against it, arms lightly crossed over his own waistcoat. Seeing him, Elizabeth suddenly became acutely aware of the fact that she was rather considerably dampened, and was wearing a semi-sheer top which had become considerably more sheer as a result of the rain dripping off of her hair. Flicking his eyes over Elizabeth’s seated form, he continued, “you’re excellent at the Microsoft Office suite.”

Fitzwilliam made a hand gesture which, on the Continent, was sufficiently rude to constitute grounds for a fight.

Darcy returned his attention to Elizabeth, and nodded his head in greeting. “Miss Bennet. A pleasure, as always.”

“Likewise, Minister,” she replied, slipping her still rather damp shoes back on and making to leave.

“Miss Bennet,” Darcy said, making a move to follow her, “if I might have a moment of your time?” he indicated towards the door which led to Fitzwilliam’s domain as gatekeeper. Elizabeth caught a glimpse of what could have been some kind of look passing from Darcy to Fitzwilliam, but could have easily been Fitzwilliam glancing around as he manoeuvred his prosthetic back inside his trouser leg and Darcy turned towards the door.

“By all means,” Elizabeth replied, turning to face Fitzwilliam. “This morning has been most diverting, Evelyn.”

“A pleasure, as always, Elizabeth,” he said, standing and inclining his head towards her. “I hope that we can repeat this in slightly more clement weather.”

Elizabeth returned his nod with one of her own, and followed Darcy from his office. Once outside, she perched on the edge of Fitzwilliam’s desk and observed him. “What was it about which you wished to talk?” she enquired, using syntactically perfect phrasing which was yet deliberately inscrutable, and looking up at Darcy in a manner which could potentially have been described as ‘coquettish’, were it being done by a lady who had not devoted the majority of her adult life to being as singularly terrifying as possible, as was the case with Elizabeth. One visiting MEP (an envoy of Her Teutonic Excellence) had commented, within the hearing of an aide with whom she was acquainted, who had passed the description on to her, that she was like a young Margaret Thatcher, only with better hair and significantly less personal warmth and compassion. Darcy was aware of that description, and having been on the receiving end of it, could attest somewhat to its truth.

“Our acquaintance didn’t get off to the most ideal start,” Darcy began.

“You don’t say,” Elizabeth commented lightly, or it would have been characterised as lightly, had it not been said with quite such an air of slightly delighted mild malice as it was.

“I wanted to apologise.”

“Did you really?”

“I should not have cast aspersions upon your qualifications or your person. It was ungentlemanly, uncalled for, and beneath me. I am most sincerely sorry for any offence I may have caused.” The whole was said with the sort of tightly-bound reserve one might have expected from a prisoner at a court martial. Elizabeth wondered idly if Darcy had ever been involved in the military, and allowed herself a moment to imagine him in dress uniform, before tamping down the thought, and chastising herself for thinking something so inappropriate. After all, she hadn’t been picturing Fitzwilliam in military uniform from the moment she had learned of his military history. Most certainly not.

Noticing that Darcy was looking at her expectantly, Elizabeth replied, “I probably could have phrased things in a slightly less… combative manner. Think nothing of it. It’s been a while since someone fought back while being bollocked, it was almost refreshing.”

“Almost?”

“Almost,” Elizabeth confirmed, “although I must ask, is ‘chit’ a word you use with some regularity, or did the situation merely move you to it?”

Darcy seemed to choke slightly. “I had hoped you had rather forgotten about that comment,” he admitted.

“That comment consumed me. I had no idea that the word had survived the turn of the 20th century, let alone the 21st. Not to mention the fact that I had never actually heard it used in parlance, I had only ever seen it written in period novels.”

Darcy looked very uncomfortable. “I would probably have to say that the situation moved me. It’s not a word I throw about regularly. Or, really ever.”

“Past performance would indicate that it is in fact a word you have thrown about ever,” Elizabeth pointed out, her comment punctuated by a single raised eyebrow.

“I suppose I must concede that point.”

“Rather.” Elizabeth regarded Darcy slightly haughtily for another moment or several, before rising from her perch on Fitzwilliam’s desk with a smile and clapping Darcy on the shoulder, much to his surprise. “I accept that you were, if not entirely, at least predominantly, in the wrong for the tone of our first meeting.”

It was now Darcy’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “I had hoped we might restart our acquaintance without what was said… mainly by me, because I recognise that all of what you said was true, if phrased somewhat…” he seemed to be casting about for a description which wasn’t ‘fucking bluntly’.

“Indelicately?” Elizabeth suggested.

“Indelicately,” Darcy agreed. “I will, of course,” he continued, “stop sending you continual emails regarding my scheduling.”

“You will do no such thing,” Elizabeth disputed. “When I said that you were to do nothing without the approval of media relations, I was being entirely serious. Disagreements aside, you’re still on a shit-list.”

“Noted,” Darcy commented.

“I’m sorry it has to be like this, but if it’s any consolation, of the two other ministers and five shadow cabinet members on similar orders, you are the only person who isn’t corresponding with an underling.”

“That brings me great comfort,” Darcy noted, in a tone which made it clear that no such thing was taking place.

Elizabeth smiled blandly. “I do also quite enjoy those little articles and statistics you send me occasionally. And the cat pictures.” She glanced at her watch. “I apologise, Minister, but I must descend into the dark tenebral trappings of my department. Know that I bear you no ill-will.” She turned, and strode for the exit.

“Miss Bennet,” he called, causing her to pivot to face him, “why do you only ever refer to me as Minister?”

Elizabeth smiled slightly. “In part because it makes me feel like Sir Humphrey Appleby, and in part because we are at work. If I ever happen to see you in a social capacity, you may rest assured that I shall refer to you as Mr Darcy.” She nodded at him in leaving, and waited until she was a good minute or two removed from his office before fishing her phone out of her handbag and hitting the speed-dial button for Charlotte.

“Elizabeth, it’s a work day. Why are you not terrifying MPs?”

“Two reasons. Firstly, Darcy apologised for the chit comment…”

“Did he now?”

“I can’t tell if it was his idea or Fitzwilliam’s, but it happened.”

“And the second reason?”

“Oh my actual and various gods,” Elizabeth began, making a concerted effort not to dissolve into fangirlish squealing.

“I’m listening,” Charlotte reminded her.

“So Fitzwilliam, as it turns out,”

“The cute cousin-slash-assistant?”

“The same.”

“Continue.”

“WAS A CAPTAIN IN THE ARMY. OH GOD. CONTINUAL MENTAL IMAGES OF HIM IN FATIGUES OR IN DRESS UNIFORM, OR CRAWLING THROUGH MUD!” she exclaimed. “It’s like every war film ever crossed with _An Officer and a Gentleman_ , and it is fire emoji, 100 emoji, praise hands emoji.”

“Elizabeth, my darling, I’m going to have to cut you off right there, because I still have no idea what this man looks like. You cannot entice me with inducements such as his glorious military past, and not give me any visuals from which to extrapolate. And so, I must bid you adieu.” With no further discussion, Charlotte ended the call, and left Elizabeth to continue the rest of the way to her office.

Where an email from Darcy awaited her. It was an updated schedule, with an attachment entitled ‘Yo I heard you liked cat pictures’. Intrigued, she clicked on it. The file, when opened, was an endlessly looping GIF of a cat, eating pizza, superimposed on a galaxy background which flashed in a psychedelic manner. It was a masterpiece in its sheer ridiculousness. For the first time, Elizabeth clicked ‘Reply’.

_Dear Sir,_

_Well played._

_EB_


	5. in which a sibling is met, and our heroine makes a bit of a fool of herself

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A character whom we have all been waiting to meet finally rears his head, and Elizabeth finds herself blushing most scandalously in the presence of men.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I preface this chapter with the fact that I’m making a lot of this up. I’m of the firm belief that somewhere within the palace of Westminster there are a number of lounge rooms resembling the innards of gentlemen’s clubs, which are given over to the various members of the House of Lords who sit about mingling when they aren’t doing whatever the members of the House of Lords do. Which, again, I’m a bit hazy on. Australian politics may be loosely similar to British politics, but there are a number of reasonably major differences as well. The upper house being one of them.

On quieter days (namely days in which parliament actually sat, and so members were unable to engage in any kind of idiocy which might reflect badly on the government and by association, the efficacy of the civil service which underpinned it), Elizabeth would venture to see if her dear papa was free for a chat and a game of chess. Not that the game was ever actually competitive, because while Elizabeth was by no means a slouch at the game, her father was an intelligent gentleman, well steeped in age, craftiness, and treachery, and he had a good forty or so years more experience than Elizabeth. Nevertheless, she persisted.

Given that she was going to be visiting her father in one of the various rooms given over to the Lords, and given her position in the civil service, not to mention her reputation as a bloodstain on the sadly rent cravat of the gentle image of British politics (or at least as much Britain as there was after Northern Ireland and Scotland seceded after the Brexit), Elizabeth could not simply swan in to say hello to her father without a collective sharp intake of breath from every politician in the room, and a lot of wary stares. When engaged in a game of chess, however, she was not regarded as an active threat. She was just a dutiful daughter visiting her doting father.

It was not, however, just that. As a young girl, her father, who may or may not have dabbled in espionage during the cold war (after all, he’d never admitted anything in as many words, but he had a suspiciously good grasp of Russian, and the hints were certainly dropped semi-regularly) had taught her that, especially as a woman, her best disguise was to be occupied with something else. A man apparently reading a book was suspicious. A woman happily ensconced in her knitting or embroidery or a game of chess, however, surely had no part of her wits available for anything more than what she seemed to be doing. Mr Bennet was reasonably certain that while the regularity of her visits was in part undoubtedly due to the fact that it was impossible to sit down to a game with him when she was at home because Mrs Bennet tended to go into fits of mild hysterics when they disappeared off into his study, as she was convinced that they were up to something nefarious (which, when Elizabeth thought about what she had learned of espionage from her father, may have actually been the case), it also, probably had something to do with keeping abreast of the political gossip, the goings on of the Lords being notoriously underpublicised whenever there wasn’t a scandal.

As usual, Elizabeth made her way through the lounge, around various tables and armchairs to where she knew her father would be sitting, reading that week’s The Economist while he waited for her to appear. When she did, he would hand her the hinged box which opened to form a chessboard, and which, when closed, contained the pieces, and Elizabeth would set the board for their game as they regaled each other with the banalities of their day-to-day interactions. The serious conversation happened during the game.

That day, however, she found her father already engaged in a game of chess. His opponent was a man in his mid- to slightly-after-mid-thirties, who was dressed in a manner which made the word ‘impeccable’ seem lacking. If not for a nose which could only charitably be called ‘aquiline’, and which, strictly speaking, ranged far more into ‘aggressive’ territory, he would have been easily the most conventionally attractive gentleman whom she had ever encountered in real life, the end result was an overall countenance which could be called distinguished without charity entering into the equation. As for his state of dress, Elizabeth, as a couturier’s daughter, could tell at a glance whether something was tailored to someone’s form after the fact or during manufacture, and this gentleman’s clothing most certainly fit into the latter category. The three piece suit was simultaneously entirely modish and timeless, in a fabric which looked to be a navy cashmere/wool blend of a high percentage of the former (although she couldn’t be sure without feeling the heft of it, and that was simply not the done thing with people to whom one had not even been introduced), and his shoes had an air of being handmade by Mediterraneans.

The only indication that he had not stepped off of the fashion plates of some menswear publication of the sort of erudition and privilege that Elizabeth, a mere ‘the Honourable’, and by dint of her father’s profession, not even by birth, could never dream to hear of, was the fact that if her eyes did not deceive her (and that was unlikely, as she had watched enough Regency and Victorian costume dramas to know at what she looked), he was wearing a cravat with his very crisp, very white shirt. It was exquisitely tied, and clearly silk, but it was a cravat nonetheless. Something about its appearance made her remember the fact that the word ‘chit’ had been used to describe her, and she worked hard to stifle the giggle which formed at that memory. The ire had faded, leaving only the residual mirth of that most ridiculous of situations.

On second thought, Elizabeth mused, given her at best limited understanding of what was de mode in gentlemen’s fashion at the time, the presence of the cravat didn’t at all preclude him from having stepped from the pages of some fashion magazine for the violently rich and exorbitantly well-heeled.

Taking the final few steps, she placed a hand on her father’s shoulder and kissed him on the cheek. “Hullo papa. I see I have arrived a bit late.”

Moving his head from where he had been engaged in a rather concerted length of sustained and rather menacing eye contact with his opponent, he turned to smile at his favourite daughter. “Not at all, my dear. You are here precisely when I had expected you. Tristan here is merely proving to be less of an easy win than I had initially thought.”

With the utterance of this not even partially veiled aspersion, the gentleman in question, this ‘Tristan’, castled with a look of louche disinterest, and stood to acknowledge Elizabeth. She was slightly surprised by this, as she wasn’t at all sure that standing when in the presence of a lady was something which was done outside of period dramas. He extended a nod in her direction which flirted with the territory of being a shallow bow, and it was only when Elizabeth was herself seated next to her father that he sat again. “You’re too kind, Reg,” he muttered darkly before turning to Elizabeth. “Do I have the pleasure of addressing Miss Elizabeth Bennet?” he enquired.

Elizabeth, who had only before heard her father referred to as ‘Reg’ by some of the old squires in the village when he visited the local for a pint and a game of darts, found it slightly ridiculous to hear such a nickname uttered in what had to be the poshest accent she had ever encountered in her life, and did her best to school her face into a neutral expression. Elizabeth was saved from having to answer through her barely suppressed mirth by her father’s answer. After taking his opponent’s rook with his bishop, accompanied by a withering look which said ‘I expected better from you’, he nodded. “You do indeed have that pleasure. Tristan, this is my second daughter, Elizabeth, who works in media relations for the Commons. Lizzie, this is Tristan, the –th Earl of ----.” Her father, ever a slight Bolshie, had a tendency to ‘accidentally’ forget people’s appropriate honorifics in conversation.

Cordial nods were again exchanged at this formal introduction. With over 800 peers in the House, Elizabeth could not be expected to keep track of all of them. Keeping track of the commons was difficult enough. She was, however, vaguely aware of some of the more interesting members. Lord Tristan, as he was known, held a hereditary seat, being one of the landed gentry, which he had inherited five years previously following the untimely and premature death of his father. Being under the age of sixty, he was notable merely for his existence, but by all accounts he was a clever chap, and seemed to take his position as a member of the upper house of a bicameral democracy rather seriously.  He was also of a family which had been well established in England long before the Hanoverians took over the monarchy.

One of the slightly more bluestocking blogs Elizabeth followed, which concerned itself with the gossip of Westminster, had alleged that one of his ancestors was depicted on the Bayeaux tapestry, but had not gone so far as to intimate which. Elizabeth wasn’t sure how much truck she gave that suggestion, but she did know that the family could trace its way back to the Norman conquest and then further back in France (a younger son having sailed with Wilgelm, the eldest being somewhere in between feudal lord and minor prince at the time and rather more interested in crusades to the Holy Land than conquesting some godforsaken rock in the middle of the uncivilised ocean to the west). What had most impressed her was the fact that there had been an unbroken line of male heirs through the intervening millennium. Or, at least, if not an unbroken line, at least sufficient younger sons to perpetuate the lineage.

Elizabeth was interrupted from her musing of the virility of the house of ----‘s issue when she realised that Lord Tristan had said something to her, and seemed to be expecting a reaction. “I’m so sorry,” she said, returning to reality, “you were saying?”

Lord Tristan smiled. “I was merely commenting on the fact that your father is about six moves from having me in checkmate, is well aware of the fact, and seems to be toying with me.”

Elizabeth glanced at the board and deduced that to be true. “Yes, he does enjoy doing that,” she agreed.

“If it’s not too forward, I wonder if I might request to play the next game with you,” he enquired, as if he were a gentleman requesting a set at a ball.

Elizabeth glanced at her father, who smiled, bemused. “Oh, don’t mind me. I’m perfectly happy to read. We can play the next time you’re at home for the weekend. The two of you will actually be rather well matched.”

The rest of the match was dispatched with brutal efficiency on the part of Mr Bennet, and resignation on the part of Lord Tristan, and the result was a surprise to neither. True to his word, Mr Bennet retrieved a folded Economist from the inner pocket of his jacket, and walked a few paces to a conveniently placed armchair where he could occasionally peer over the top of his spectacles and magazine to observe the course of their game. Elizabeth was reasonably sure that that was all he was of a mind to observe, because she was almost entirely sure that the Earl was rather not necessarily a gentleman interested in the fairer sex.

She could not be entirely certain, because once a gentleman reached a certain level of poshness, it was difficult to be sure. There was at least one other gentleman in her circle of acquaintance who fell into the grey area of the posh/gay venn diagram (not to be confused with the gay/European venn diagram brought into public discourse by the stage musical version of the film ‘Legally Blonde’), and the more posh a gentleman was, the greyer the area became. And this gentleman, as he replaced the chess pieces with the sort of grace and economy of hand action which spoke of hours at the clavier or a tragically misspent youth spent doing ballet, was undoubtedly most posh.

What followed was easily the most engaging game of chess Elizabeth had played in years, her only opponents regularly available being her father, his old friend and her direct supervisor Mr Gardiner, both of whom were astonishingly good and ruthlessly crafty, and Charlotte, when they were astonishingly drunk and equally bored, and while those games were delightfully fun, they were generally abandoned halfway through in fits of the giggles as various topics of conversation derailed the more nuanced thought required for the game. It was with genuine regret that when their game ended, with a narrow victory to the Earl of ----, she shook his hand and stood to return to her office.

“Miss Elizabeth,” he said, forestalling her exit, once she had bade farewell to her father.

“Yes?” she turned.

“We must do this again at some point. This has been most diverting.” He reached into a pocket and produced a card, an action which she reciprocated. “Do let me know when you’re next free, and we should do this again, because you very nearly beat me.”

Elizabeth murmured her assent and presently returned to her office, to find that there was still basically nothing to do. She had an email from Darcy with his latest schedule, but otherwise nothing. She looked at the card which she had been given. All it had was the initials ‘TF’, and a mobile phone number. Elizabeth shrugged and entered the number into her phone. Just as she finished, she received a text message from Fitzwilliam.

_I am entirely bored, and I’m reasonably sure that you are as well._

Elizabeth had to note that he was correct. _That is indeed the case. I shall be over shortly._

And so, shortly, she was. After an  air-kiss on the cheek in greeting, they seated themselves in Darcy’s office, with the afternoon sun throwing Fitzwilliam’s Romanesque features into relief.

“I hate sitting days,” Fitzwilliam moaned. “There is literally nothing to do. Nobody even calls or emails because they know it’s a sitting day. How do you manage?” he asked.

Elizabeth shrugged. “I read books. I knit. Sometimes there is an enduring cock-up with which to deal. Often I just visit my father in the Lords and play some chess.” That reminded her of something. “I visited him today, and ended up playing chess with someone who had to be the poshest chap I had ever had the pleasure of meeting. I’m talking _unbelievably_ posh. The sort of accent which made the Queen sound like a cockney.”

Fitzwilliam cocked an eyebrow. “You don’t say…” he noted smoothly, engendering a prickling of suspicion in Elizabeth. “How might you describe this gentleman?” he enquired.

“Astonishingly well dressed, with the possible exception, or indeed addition, depending on the current bend of gentlemen’s fashion, of a cravat, deliberate nose, violently upperclass.”

Fitzwilliam’s cocked eyebrow receded, only to be replaced with a growing grin. “Around the age of 36?” Elizabeth nodded. “Hair potentially slightly floppier than one might usually see in a gentleman of good breeding?” Another, slightly more hesitant, nod. “The –th Earl of ----?” he finally enquired, to Elizabeth’s not inconsiderable surprise.

“How did you know?” she asked, dumbfounded.

Fitzwilliam minor pulled out his phone, selected a number on speed dial, and placed it on speaker. “Tristan is my older brother,” he explained over the sound of ringing. “I’m surprised he didn’t introduce himself fully, because he definitely knows who you are.”

Elizabeth was saved from addressing that specific comment by the call connecting. “Tris, darling,” Fitzwilliam minor began, his usually crisp and polished accent lengthening into a much posher drawl than she would have believed to be in his repertoire, albeit unsurprising given recent discoveries as to his family, “E here. How are you?”

“Marvellous, E. Yourself?”

“I cannot complain.” Listening to the two of them talk, it was obvious that they were related. The similarities that she had missed now seemed all the more obvious. “Now Tris, funny story. I’m sure you remember Miss Elizabeth Bennet, with whom you were recently playing chess?”

“Oh yes. Delightful girl. Excellent hair, even if her father is a bit of a Bolshie. Also quite good at chess, if nowhere near as good as the old man.”

At the ‘Bolshie’ comment, Fitzwilliam minor had cut his gaze to Elizabeth, who shrugged. The description was, if nothing else, not untrue. “I happened to be conversing with her just now, and she mentioned that she had just met, and I’m quoting here, ‘the poshest chap she had ever had the pleasure of meeting’.” He trailed off with a bit of a snort which soon devolved into chuckling as Elizabeth, while thoroughly entertained, nevertheless began to blush rather deeply. The reply through the phone speaker was a surprising hoot of laughter. Getting back on topic, Fitzwilliam minor continued, “Why on earth did you not feel the need to introduce yourself properly? I have no doubt that she might have been less candid with me had she been fully appraised of the facts.”

“Miss Elizabeth,” Fitzwilliam major said, ignoring his brother’s comments, “I assume you’re listening in, as there’s no other reason E would have me on speaker, and I can feel your growing mortification through the line. I am afraid I behaved abominably by not letting you know who I was from the outset, as I was already well aware of you thanks to my brother. I offer my most sincere apologies for any discomfort I have caused.”

Elizabeth surprised herself by blushing harder when she thought she had reached her limit. She knew that the redness was making its way down her neck to her chest, and that somehow only added to her mortification. “It’s quite alright,” she assured him. “I should have surmised that something was afoot when Evelyn started asking me leading questions.”

“He never was the most subtle of lads,” Fitzwilliam major commented, “but alas I must bid you both adieu,” and without further notice, the call was ended.

Elizabeth sat for a moment, frozen in horror, before burying her face in her hands in an attempt to forestall notice until her complexion returned to its normal hue.

“Are you alright, Elizabeth?” Fitzwilliam then asked, a note of concern in his voice.

Elizabeth’s answer was forestalled by the entry of Darcy into his office, his timing abominable as ever. At the sound of the door opening, she removed her hands from her face to see who had arrived, and then froze in horror as she simultaneously remembered whose office she occupied, and remembered just how flushed she was.

Darcy was, as ever, more or less inscrutable, casting his eyes over Elizabeth in a manner which almost flirted with ‘lingering’ but could just as easily have merely been ‘judgemental’.

“Elizabeth met Tristan today, and he neglected to mention that he and I were related. We just had the most enlightening conversation wherein Elizabeth told me about how she had met the poshest man ever.”

Darcy smiled slightly, a quirk of the mouth which made him look considerably less severe. “Tristan is the most abominable toff, isn’t he,” he commented.

“What surprised me the most was the fact that Evelyn sounded completely different when he was talking to him,” Elizabeth noted, turning to Fitzwilliam. “I had no idea you toned down how posh you actually sound.”

At this comment, Darcy smiled fully. “It’s like watching Made in Chelsea when the two of them are in a room together. Evelyn, to his credit, tones the accent down in polite company so as to not attract quite as much notice.”

Elizabeth was saved from further conversation on her abject faux pas by her phone ringing. With brief apologies she all but fled from the room, answering the call with a feeling which bordered on relief. She could deal with cleaning up whichever scandal had made it to the press most recently. She was less adept at dealing with the new information that a gentleman of her acquaintance was very much a member of the landed gentry, and the fact that she had rather embarrassed herself in front of him, and had then been seen by a minster of Her Majesty’s government, blushing most indecorously.

It was the sort of behaviour, which for her, simply would not do.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As is occasionally the case, I have some discussion on my writing blog, as well as a call for submissions, so check it out at cynicinafishbowl.tumblr.com


	6. in which visiting is undertaken, entertaining histories are revealed, we are introduced to another sibling, and the opera is attended.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We say hello to Mary, the -th Earl of ---- is an absolute delight (as ever), and events to which I've been alluding for ages finally come to pass.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter is longer than usual. For the record. Not that I'm expecting complaints, I'd write significantly longer updates if I believed I could keep up more than 3k per week.  
> Indeed I was tempted to cut this one short around the 3k mark, but I feel that the last couple of chapters have just been fillers to pad out the coming action, and had I done that, this too would have been another filler chapter. Instead, we have a longer than usual update, coupled with the thing which I've been saying will happen for ages, which is finally taking place. I recognise that there will be much rending of hair etc. when it comes to pass, but I've been low-key shipping this pairing ever since I first conceived of this fic so many years ago.

At the end of an exceedingly trying day, Elizabeth trudged home, flopped limply onto the sofa, and did the only thing she felt she could do in her fragile emotional state – she called Charlotte.

“Elizabeth, I am going to hang up if you cannot furnish me with photographs of your new potential conquest,” she began with no preamble whatsoever.

“Don’t hang up, because while I still cannot, I can give you the next best thing and also I have a horiffically embarrassing story to relate which I am sure you will delight in,” Elizabeth hedged swiftly.

On the other end of the call, Elizabeth heard the sound of something being set aside and the call being taken off speaker. “You, my dear, have my full attention,” Charlotte said with a not insignificant hint of glee, “you had better start talking.”

“It was a slow day, so I took the opportunity to visit papa for a spot of chess. He was, however, busy playing someone else, who was later introduced to me as Lord Tristan, the –th Earl of ----.” Elizabeth was then interrupted by a thoroughly undignified snort from Charlotte. “Can I help you?” she enquired testily.

“Sorry. That wasn’t meant to be out loud. I’ll explain when you’re done. Please continue. I’m treating this with all of the seriousness it deserves,” Charlotte assured, with what sounded like a concerning undercurrent of barely suppressed giggles.

“Anyway,” Elizabeth continued with a note of definite umbrage taken, “this Lord Tristan and I played some chess, and he was, while absolutely charming, and know that I am exaggerating not a jot, THE BIGGEST TOFF I HAVE EVER ENCOUNTERED. I didn’t know people could _be_ that posh. He was actually a really entertaining chess partner. I know that I have no chance whatsoever against papa, but Lord Tristan and I were exceedingly well matched in playing ability.”

“Elizabeth,” Charlotte interrupted, “you’re getting off the point.”

“Right. Anyway, afterwards, I’m back at my desk, still with nothing to do, and I get a text from Evelyn, who was apparently also abominably bored, so I went over for a chat,”

“YES YOU FUCKING DID!” Charlotte enthused.

“And related the recent story of how I had met the poshest chap I could ever have dreamed to encounter, at which point he started asking all these leading questions, because _apparently_ ,” Elizabeth tended to speak in italics when she was somewhat overwrought, “Lord Tristan is his BROTHER. So not only did I make a complete tit of myself, he then called said brother on speakerphone and chastised him for not introducing himself properly, because _apparently_ , he’s heard about me. I proceeded to blush like I had not blushed in a long time, like we’re talking creeping down into the blouse territory, and then Darcy walks in and compounds the horror of the fact that I was sitting there blushing horrifically. I was rescued by the fact that some reporter was trying to get into my office, and I was called to come back and deal with them. Honestly, it was just so embarrassing.”

“You poor little nugget,” Charlotte consoled with absolutely no sincerity, “I’m sure that was most trying for you.”

“Why are you being smug, Char? This isn’t going to entirely endear me to the man.”

“Firstly, my dear, bullshit. You blush rather prettily. And there’s the fact that there’s some weird thing about guys wherein they get all manly and protective and shit around blushing females. Virtus or some nonsense. Secondly, I’m almost entirely sure that the man has at least a bit of a crush on you. Obviously I can’t speak with any certainty without actually seeing the two of you in person, but honestly, I think you demonstrating that your reserve isn’t entirely unflappable will have been interpreted as charming. Finally, ummm… as it turns out, I may already be acquainted with him in a way,” Charlotte trailed off somewhat uncomfortably.

“Is that so?” Elizabeth enquired in a deliberately light tone with a deliberate steely core.

“Yeah… ummm… remember when I was on exchange and I decided to give being straight the good old college try, as it were, and so did the gentleman in question, only it turned out that both he and I were far too homosexually inclined for anything to take place past some vague canoodling?”

Elizabeth did indeed remember being informed of that, along with what had been a hilarious description of everything Charlotte found ‘icky’ about fraternising with the male sex. Which turned out to be just about everything associated with fraternising with the male sex. She indicated as such.

“Well as it happens, the chap with whom I engaged in that unfortunate foray into sexual experimentation --”

“Fuck directly off,” Elizabeth breathed, amazed. “You knew his brother this entire time? How did you not put one and one together?”

“We didn’t keep that closely in touch. Also, I may not have entirely known his surname. These were, you will recall, the days preceeding Facebook and all of the ease in stalking that that platform brought. I knew that he was Fitz-someone or other, because the fencing team he was perpetually hanging out with referred to him as Fitzmajor, which I realise now was probably a nod to the fact that he was the elder of siblings and attended the kind of school where students were referred to by surnames and the issue of siblings was dealt with by referencing their birth order.”

“In which case, how can you be sure?”

There was a pause, which indicated that Charlotte was making a disparaging face which did not translate audibly. “How many Tristan Fitz-somethings who are peers of the realm and are my age do you think there are.”

“Good point.”

“Rather,” Charlotte drawled. “Say,” she continued, brightening, “this has all become delightfully incestuous all of a sudden.”

It was then Elizabeth’s turn to pause, because she was entirely without response. She was saved from having to formulate one by the entrance into the apartment of Jane and *gasp* a gentleman. “Charlotte, I must let you go, because Jane has just arrived with a gentleman caller whom I am now going to make feel exceedingly uncomfortable for a short while. Bisous-bisous.”

Elizabeth ended the call, stood with as much grace as was possible considering the fact that she had been flopped over the arm of the sofa when Jane had arrived (which was to say, not much), and strode towards where Jane’s gentleman friend was standing in the doorway, looking slightly nervous. “Elizabeth Bennet,” she said, extending her hand. “I take it you’re Charles Bingley?”

“Yes. Delighted to make your acquaintance.” His handshake was firm, and he was just as conventionally attractive as his facebook profile made him out to be. Elizabeth couldn’t help but ponder the fact that any potential children resulting from the union of he and Jane would be devastatingly good looking.

“Will you be staying for dinner?” Jane asked in a tone which fairly screamed that she had not considered the possibility of Elizabeth being home. Bingley, to his credit, didn’t seem to notice the note of light panic, as he was too busy gazing dreamily at Jane when he thought she wasn’t watching.

“Oh no, I was just on my way out,” Elizabeth lied breezily. After considering her sister’s potential intent for the evening, she continued, “I’ll call when I’m on my way back.”

Jane, who entirely noted her sister’s insinuation, flushed prettily. With a vaguely threatening look in Bingley’s direction, Elizabeth collected her handbag and coat from where she had dumped them and exited the apartment. Once outside, she once again dialled Charlotte.

“That was quick,” Charlotte noted in lieu of greeting.

“Is what she said,” Elizabeth replied.

“Hilarious.”

“I know.”

“You called?”

“Oh. Yes. I’m pretty sure I just sexiled myself for the evening. Can I come over and hang?”

A sigh. “Ordinarily yes, and we could go through Lord Tristan’s facebook photos looking for his crush-worthy brother, spoiler alert, his Instagram is devoid of faces, but I’m in Glasgow at the moment on a job.”

“I figured it was a long shot. Jane just had that adorable look of ‘I thought we were going to be alone, but I’m too polite to hiss at you to shove off’, so I made myself scarce.”

“Sorry. Let me know how the evening goes. And send him my regards.”

“Will do. See you.”

Elizabeth ended the call and stared into the night for a moment, running through her options. She dialled her younger sister.

“Elizabeth.” Elizabeth’s younger sister was a strong believer in not wasting time on niceties when on the phone. And often in person.

“Mary. I’ve sexiled myself for the evening because Jane has a hot doctor over. Are you free?”

“I’m queueing for virtually free opera tickets.”

“Please elaborate.”

“It’s the 200th anniversary of the show or something, so they’re releasing 200 tickets at two quid each tomorrow morning. Maximum two tickets per person, obviously, and even though literally all of my concert buddies are unavailable for the performance date, I’m getting two tickets, and if worse comes to worst I’m going to put a post up on facebook asking for someone well-dressed and with a passable understanding of classical music.”

“You mean to say that you’re queueing overnight in London for tickets.”

“They’re two pound opera tickets. I’d be willing to do a darn sight more than this to secure them.”

“Do you want company?”

“You’re volunteering to sit on the street outside the Royal Opera House box office with me for a large chunk of the night? Do you have warm, comfortable clothing? Did you bring a blanket and something to do and something to sit on?” Mary’s tone implied that she knew the answers to all of these questions.

“Good point. Are you there all by yourself?”

“No. There’s two other girls who are equally willing to do just about anything for virtually free opera. We’re bonding nicely.”

“How about I pop by with a coffee for all of you?”

There was some muffled conversation, followed by, “That would be most appreciated by all of us. If none of my concert buddies stop being unavailable, do you want the other ticket?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll text you the coffee requests. Thanks, Liz.”

Elizabeth and Mary had an interesting relationship. After the twins were born and took possession of the room that had been planned for Mary and the youngest, Jane had been given her own room, and Elizabeth and Mary, as the next youngest, had shared a room reasonably harmoniously. That was until, at age sixteen, Mary entered a phase which could only be described as ‘goth-lite’, wherein her taste in clothing became decidedly monochromatic, her experiments with makeup were highly questionable, and her taste in music began to skew heavily towards the Scandinavian and metallic. It was this third point which was the major bone of contention, and after six months, Elizabeth had successfully petitioned her parents to let her and Jane share a room.

Mary, having always been a bit different to the other Bennet girls in her tastes in sport and academic interest and mode of clothing and basically everything else, had taken the abandonment remarkably well. Probably because it meant she had her own room to use for her recreational crafts, instead of always having to make sure that nothing was where it could be touched by an inquisitive sibling before they had properly dried or the glue had adequately cured or a number of mishaps which Elizabeth had inadvertently caused. It also allowed her to store various things which the rest of the family preferred to forget that she owned and enjoyed.

After a coffee delivery and a bit of chatting, where Mary’s setup of double layered yoga mats, hooded sweater, old jeans, warm socks, boots, and snuggy, along with water-bottle, tea thermos, muesli bars, book, phone, headphones, and portable battery told Elizabeth that her sister had most definitely done this kind of thing before, and that she herself was indeed woefully unprepared for such an undertaking.

Running through her options again, Elizabeth took a deep breath and sent off a text.

_I appear to have inadvertently sexiled myself. Are you receiving?_

She was deleting the various marketing emails which had insinuated themselves into her inbox since her last purge, a few hours ago, when she received a reply in the form of a call.

“Good evening, Elizabeth. You appear to have what, now?”

“Good evening, Evelyn. Sexiled. Exiled in order to facilitate sex. I inadvertently did it and am rather at a loss as to what to do with myself until I can return to my apartment.”

The next thing Elizabeth heard was a drawn out scuffle over the phone line, punctuated by the odd muffled word. “Is everything alright?” she enquired.

“Everything’s fine. Tristan tried to wrestle my phone off me,” he sounded like he was struggling with something, “but he forgot,” the word ‘forgot’ was punctuated by a noise of effort, “that even missing a leg, he still can’t overpower me.” There was a moment of slightly heavier than usual breathing, followed by, “he insists that you come over. He says that we are indeed receiving, and that it’s delightful to see that turn of phrase being bandied about. I’ll text you the address.” There then followed the sound of more scuffling, during which the call was unexpectedly terminated.

A minute or so later, Elizabeth received a text with an address in Belgravia. Followed by another, which read:

_I should probably warn you, Tris has been experimenting in the kitchen, so you’re in for a wild ride._

Followed, in short order, by:

_If you even contemplate getting something to bring, I will personally disembowel you._

Elizabeth’s eyebrows rose of their own accord, and she was slightly surprised by the sudden change in tone, until another text appeared.

_This is Tristan, by the way._

Followed by:

_Please ignore Tristan. He’s been a lunatic for the length of our acquaintance._

Elizabeth requested an Uber and was soon standing outside an immaculate townhouse in an excellent part of town. She quickly checked her reflection in her phone screen, fixed the line of her blouse, and made her way up the steps to knock on the door, using a brass knocker in the shape of the skull of some kind of woodland predator. She was willing to guess a fox, having had some experience with various skulls during the darker days of her sister’s goth phase, but it could easily have been a wolf or coyote. It was definitely an interesting touch in the sort of neighbourhood where such extravagances might have been, if not frowned upon, at least silently disapproved of.

The door was opened by a decidedly more casual Fitzwilliam than she had ever previously encountered. He was clad in sweat pants and a Henley which was unbuttoned to show a hint of collarbone, the barest suggestion of chest hair, and the most delightful set of trapezius muscles Elizabeth had seen in a while. Which admittedly wasn’t saying much, as the bulk of Elizabeth’s contact with the opposite sex was at work, when all and sundry were clad in suits, but that was not to say that the gentleman did not have spectacularly nice upper shoulder/lower neck muscles, which heretofore had always been hidden by blazers and collared shirts. “Elizabeth, do come in,” he said, standing to the side as she entered and removed her coat.

Elizabeth noticed a pair of crutches sitting in an umbrella stand, but decided that discretion was the better part of valour, and didn’t ask. “Thank you for inviting me over. My sister came home with a date and made it abundantly clear that she had expected that I wouldn’t be at home, and apparently everyone I know is either not in the country, or is queueing overnight for cheap opera tickets.”

“Queueing? As in outdoors? In February? How absolutely ghastly!” Lord Tristan commented, appearing at the end of a hallway clad in suit trousers, an undershirt (tucked in, natch), and loudly patterned socks, covered by a transparent plastic apron which made him look like he was about to engage in a spot of recreational murder. “Lovely to see you, Miss Elizabeth. I take it you found us without too much trouble?”

Elizabeth, who had spent enough time around the peerage to expect some level of eccentricity, smiled. “Yes, thank you, Lord Fitzwilliam.”

“Pish tosh, darling,” the man waved a hand dismissively, “none of that formality. Call me Lord Tristan.”

Fitzwilliam snorted and offered an arm to Elizabeth, which, after a moment’s hesitation, she took. As he led her down the hallway, he leaned down to murmur, “Ignore him. He hasn’t had the opportunity to torment any young ladies of late, so he’s being a bit of an interminable shit.” He intentionally raised his voice towards the end so that his brother could hear him.

Elizabeth, who while sure that Charlotte would be delightfully proud of her for socialising with an eligible young man whom she was starting to think she rather liked, was nonetheless rather inexperienced in such assignations, having had better things to do in the years since university than engage in romantic entanglements (this was, of course, stepping past the fact that she tended to engender terror in the souls of any young men she happened to encounter, as they were all somehow in government and so rather acquainted already with her reputation), and wasn’t entirely sure of the protocol in such situations. So she resolved to act as if she were merely visiting a friend for dinner. Even if said friend were rather more dishabille than she was used to encountering him.

Seeing the two men in a room together, it was obvious that they were related. Their mannerisms had a certain similarity, and their looks were not wholly different.

It also appeared that Fitzwilliam hadn’t been exaggerating when he had said she was in for a wild ride. The meal served was ostensibly a Korean chili stew, which was the most aggressive shade of red that Elizabeth had ever seen a food be. When she enquired as to what it was, Lord Tristan had shrugged expansively and said that he had no hope of pronouncing it even remotely correctly. A statement with which, after later googling ‘Korean chili stew’ and seeing the mass of consonants that the transliteration netted, Elizabeth was inclined to agree.

The rest of the evening passed without incident. Much conversation was had, the food, while a terrifying, pulsating red which spoke of the Inferno, was not nearly as piquant as might have been expected, and as Fitzwilliam walked her to her waiting Uber at the end of the night, there was a moment wherein there was the possibility of a kiss, a pause where each waited for the other to make a move in any direction which would allow them to know where they stood, but neither moved, and so nothing happened. Elizabeth filed the incident away as something to be discussed with Charlotte at some later date. Perhaps even Jane could be pressed for a reading of the situation.

It was only when she arrived at her and Jane’s apartment that she realised that she had forgotten to pass on Charlotte’s greeting. She supposed she could file it away for later.

Three days later, and two more meetings with Fitzwilliam which, according to Charlotte, who was given blow-by-blow accounts of both (at her own request), were positively dripping with sexual tension so thick and rich she could drizzle it on toast (her words, verbatim), Elizabeth still had no idea where she stood on any potential romantic front. A battle-axe in her day-to-day professional dealings, she was rather more reticent when it came to romantic attachments. And then there was the fact that Darcy kept appearing at inopportune moments, looming like some tall, dark and attractive creature of nightmare, both in actuality, and in her mind whenever she sat down to think about whether she really had the time and effort necessary to pursue something of a romantic inclination with Fitzwilliam, causing her to get terribly flustered and drop the train of thought immediately.

It was then that Mary emailed her.

_Lizzie,_

_Literally everyone I know is busy on the night of the opera. Please tell me that you have nothing to do on Thursday night. If you turn out to be busy, I will have to resort to a post on facebook, and the people who I know will respond to that kind of post are exactly the sort of people who I would not want to go to the opera with._

_Mary._

Just as she was abruptly functional with her phone calls, Mary tended towards the ascetic when it came to padding out emails with banalities like pleasantries. And forms of address.

Never one to pass up virtually free opera tickets, Elizabeth typed out a reply.

_Barring the cosmic background potential for a fuckup, I am free._

_Lizzie_

Seconds later (actually seconds, Elizabeth had no idea how her sister was able to type that quickly), Mary rejoined with:

_You will be there, or you will be responsible for furnishing a suitably dressed, suitably musically literate replacement._

_Mary._

Elizabeth always wondered at the fact that Mary signed all of her emails with a full stop after her name. It furnished an air of finality which spoke of terse governesses and other spinsterish female authority figures. Which, to be entirely honest, fitted in rather well both with Mary’s tragic past as a teenage goth and angst-ridden 20-something, and her rather bluestocking tendencies.

Thursday afternoon arrived with Mary swanning in to the media relations department wearing a crisp white collared shirt tucked into a scarlet silk ballgown skirt, carrying a pair of heels and a small clutch in one hand, and using the other hand to hold a gathered section of the hem of her voluminous skirt in such a manner that she was able to walk through narrow spaces without worrying about the skirt snagging on things or knocking them over. Mary didn’t often have opportunities to dress up, being engaged in postgraduate engineering study, and so tended to go all-out when an occasion did arise.

A number of eyebrows were raised by her appearance, but nobody stopped her as she made her way to Elizabeth’s office and arranged herself (or rather, her skirts) in one of the chairs facing her sister. While it wasn’t a usual occurrence for overdressed females to be visiting her, it also wasn’t an unheard of event. The fact that she paused in her travel to air-kiss Mr Gardiner meant that the bulk of the drones were immediately disposed to be in terrified awe of her. Not that Mary knew, or cared. Her sole interest was getting Elizabeth out of the office before something had time to go wrong.

The sibling in question had opted for a fashion-forward ensemble of tailored trousers, a blouse which, in the correct lighting, was rather racily not at all opaque, very tall heels, and a burgundy velvet smoking jacket. Which was to say that she couldn’t be bothered changing at work, and so had elected for something which could have loosely been construed as workplace appropriate. As long as she stayed out of most forms of lighting, as the shirt erred perhaps a bit too far on the side of ‘diaphonous’, and the bra she was wearing beneath it was most definitely erring on the side of ‘racy’.

“Elizabeth,” Mary began, by way of greeting.

“Mary,” Elizabeth acknowledged.

“You’re looking workplace appropriate.”

“Oh, piss off. The shirt isn’t that transparent.”

Mary snorted. “Have you seen yourself?”

Elizabeth shrugged a concession. “Empowerment et cetera, et cetera.”

“Valid,” Mary conceded, unlocking her phone and opening what was (knowing Mary) an article of some nature on something undoubtedly horrifically boring and heavily technical.

After a half hour of delegating tasks for the next day, and her daily ‘tomorrow’s schedule, strap in for endless updates and changes’ email from the Darcy, Elizabeth heard a stream of shouted Scottish profanity. She knew what that meant. As, indeed, did Mary, who looked up at the first obscenity, and glared sharply at Elizabeth as if to say ‘this is not your problem, you are busy tonight’.

Unfortunately, they also knew that this was invariably very much probably Elizabeth’s problem, and damn any prior engagements. A minion poked his head into her office. “UKIP is imploding,” he said by way of explanation. “Himself said that I needed to get you out there spinning things or he would pull my intestines out through my eyeballs and strangle me with my own entrails.”

Mary raised her eyebrows, plainly impressed by the imagination inherent in that threat. The minion, some fresh out of university type who, while rather intelligent, lacked the temperament to survive a department run by the generally malevolent cyclone that was Mr Edward Gardiner, looked at Elizabeth with puppyish eyes filled with pleading and trepidation. The rational part of his brain told him that it had been an empty threat, and knew that he could not even be fired for insubordination or incompetence (the civil services union being bloodthirsty beasts with excellent lawyers who had made it virtually impossible to terminate anyone’s employment). The rather less rational segment, the more primal lizard brain, wasn’t quite so sure, and damned if his fight/flight mechanism wasn’t actively petitioning for the latter.

“Five minutes,” Elizabeth reassured the functionary.

The functionary nodded and removed his head from her doorway. Elizabeth pondered the fact that had he been a horse, the whites of his eyes would have been showing. Mary’s concerns were rather more prosaic. “I get that you’re vital to the running of the great shit-barge that is the constitutional monarchy, or at least to maintaining the façade of the running of the great shit-barge, but you’ve got to be kidding me.”

“I will find you a replacement in the form of a strapping young man who is unlikely to complain,” Elizabeth replied, pulling out her own phone.

“If I wanted one of those, I would have just trawled the computer labs for a likely specimen,” Mary pointed out, markedly unimpressed, but resigned. This wasn’t the first time some crisis or another had derailed plans with Lizzie.

Elizabeth took no notice, and selected a number. “Evelyn, I need to ask you a massive favour. Are you free this evening?” Mary drummed her fingers against the arm of her chair in an appearance of idleness which Elizabeth recognised as disapproval of being kept out of the loop of whichever machinations were being made in her name. After the requisite time required for a reply passed, Elizabeth continued, “I preface this with the fact that I know that this is entirely out of the ordinary, but I was supposed to accompany my younger sister to the opera tonight, and a sticky situation has developed which requires my presence and particular brand of dark magic, so I’m going to need you to get to my office, appropriately dressed for such an eventuality, in the next minute or so.” Another pause. “You are a prince among men.”

About four minutes later, Evelyn Fitzwilliam appeared, ensconced in a three piece suit with immaculately knotted tie, striding serenely through the maelstrom of information dealing that was Elizabeth’s department at that moment. He rapped on the doorframe with an air of slight bewilderment, but at least he had showed up, so that was a mark in his favour.

“Evelyn, this is my younger sister Mary. Mary, this is Evelyn Fitzwilliam, a warm body who has agreed to accompany you in my stead. Do try to be civil.”

“A pleasure,” Mary noted in a menacing tone.

“Likewise,” Fitzwilliam countered, one eyebrow raised.

Confident that the two of them would manage an evening’s entertainment with minimal bloodshed (or at least minimal permanent damage), Elizabeth ushered them from the department, leaving them standing in a hallway sizing each other up: Mary with the barely disguised hostility she had cultivated during her Dark Period, and Fitzwilliam with a look that said he was intrigued by the clearly unimpressed creature before him. Elizabeth, having 26 years of acquaintance with Mary, knew that she would warm to Fitzwilliam once she ascertained that he wasn’t a complete moron; and given that Fitzwilliam had grown up with Lord Tristan for a brother, he seemed likely to be able to survive until Mary decided that his presence wasn’t a complete imposition.

With a sigh, Elizabeth returned to the maelstrom to first deal with the inevitable 'why is some Oxbridge tory arsefuck visiting your office and exiting with the eldest of your younger sisters?' discussion, and then to see which producers of which media offerings needed to be yelled at first such that they saw the merits of toeing the truth according to the party-line of Westminster. It wasn’t strictly speaking disinformation so much as a mere prioritisation of facts in initial offerings. Or so they all told themselves in order to get to sleep at night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As flagged in the notes at the beginning, I had barely thought of the premise of this fic when I knew that I wanted Mary/Fitzwilliam to be a plot point. I don't know why, I just did. Indeed I had written out their entire meeting scene over a year ago. The scene you just read bears no similarity to that scene, and for reference, I will be posting that outtake on my fic blog, along with an explanation as to why things were changed. Check it out at cynicinafishbowl.tumblr.com
> 
> Finally, credit for the Fitzminor/Fitzmajor nicknames goes to AMarguerite. Oh how I wish that I had concieved of something that elegant.


	7. The Evening After the Evening at the Opera, in which Things are Discussed, and Dudgeon is at times High.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Political machinations take place, exceedingly personal discussions are had, and looming is involved. It's dialogue heavy, and it's heavy on the revelations of things.  
> In my opinion, at least.  
> Also featuring 'Oh shit I just done fukt up real hard there'!Darcy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter comes after the first of what will doubtless be many little interspersed chapters following in some specificity the Mary/Fitzwilliam agenda. It can be found here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/9910310/chapters/22207691  
> It's not vital to the plot of this chapter, but it gives a bit of insight into some of the things to which the chapter occasionally alludes. Also, we get to experience Mary trying her level best to dislike someone, and finding, for the first time, that she can't.

“We need a face,” Mr Gardiner growled to the assembled troops, everyone who could be spared from keeping the news media intrigued enough not to publish until more details came to hand, and simultaneously stonewalling them so that even if they did get bored and tried to publish they had nothing. Them and the people in charge of keeping Whitehall and Number 10 on the phone and making sure they KEPT THEIR FUCKING MOUTHS SHUT UNTIL THEY HAD SOMETHING TO SAY FROM THIS DEPARTMENT UNLESS THEY’D LIKE TO KNOW WHAT THEIR OWN LIGHTLY SAUTÉED BOLLOCKS TASTE LIKE AT THREE IN THE FUCKING MORNING HAVE I MADE MYSELF CLEAR.

“Someone important enough to seem to know what they’re talking about, and simultaneously not so important that they can’t be jettisoned if this doesn’t go over well and Number 10 needs someone to crucify. Preferably someone halfway intelligent,” he continued. “And their consent would, I suppose, be nice. Give the grasping fuckers a choice. They’ll all go for it, because if this ends well for us it’ll be a coup de fucking grace the likes of which they’ll have never experienced in their miserable lives.”

As suggestions began to be thrown around, Elizabeth’s phone buzzed with an email. From Darcy.

_Something is going on with UKIP. I don’t know what, but it looks like it’s going to be messy. I’ve already had three phone calls from newspapers because I went to university with their leader._

_In the interest of getting off of your shit list, is there a set response I should be giving?_

_Fitzwilliam_

“The minister for youth and unemployment went to university with the poor sack of meat we’re about to throw to the wolves,” Elizabeth offered.

“Go. Now,” was the order.

Assuming that if he was fielding calls from reporters, he was likely still in his office, Elizabeth took off her heels and set off at a run. Arriving shortly afterwards at Darcy’s office, she took a moment to catch her breath, straighten her clothing, and replace her heels, before finding that he was not in his office. Pulling out her phone, she began typing a reply on her way back to the War Chamber formerly known as her department, only to collide with a body which was tall, solid, and male, drop her phone, and almost lose her balance.

She found herself being held upright by the very gentleman for whom she was looking, who, once it was clear that she could keep her balance, took a step back and fixed Elizabeth with a look which was equal parts appreciative and predatory, and which gave her a number of odd, fluttery feelings. This was disconcerting for a number of reasons. The first was the fact that Elizabeth was not the sort of woman prone to flutteriness. She was made of sterner stuff than that. The second reason was that the man in question (who as it turned out was still looking at her in that manner) was rather tall and well proportioned and attractive and had a nice voice and was altogether far too dreamy for his own good, and Elizabeth didn’t have time for him to be inspiring fluttery feelings with nothing more than a look, albeit one which was becoming incrementally more predatory with each passing moment. The final reason was the fact that she had things to be doing right then involving either making or breaking his political career, and she didn’t have time to be disconcerted.

Finding her mettle, Elizabeth took a moment to retrieve her phone, indicated with her head that he should follow her, and started the walk back to her department. “I’ve got a potential way off the shit list,” she offered.

“Let me guess,” Darcy responded, “you need some partially willing warm body to be the face of the government’s opinion on this issue, and you need them to be important enough to be taken seriously but not so important that they’re not immediately expendable, and you thought of me?”

“That’d be about right. I assume you’re aware of the risks?”

“If this doesn’t go down well, my political career is more or less over, and if it does, Number 10 will owe me one hell of a favour some time down the track.”

“You’ve put some thought into this.”

“When a political party headed by an old acquaintance looks like it’s going to tear itself apart during the late night news, you tend to do a bit of thinking. I’ve already messaged E asking him to head back once he’s done with whatever you sent him to do. What was that anyway?”

“I was meant to accompany my younger sister to the opera. Obviously, things came up. I needed someone who could fill the role of ‘warm body’ with minimal warning. Evelyn came through.”

“Is that why you’re…” he looked her up and down pointedly.

“I certainly don’t usually dress for the office like this,” Elizabeth replied acidly.

“You do look stunning,” Darcy offered, causing Elizabeth to blush, a physiological reaction for which she hated herself. It was, after all, decidedly difficult to exude control over a situation when colouring like a Victorian protagonist. Luckily for her, they then reached the media relations department, at which point Darcy was seized upon and the process began.

After several hours of carefully drip-feeding the reporters and engaging in screaming matches (both figurative and literal) with Whitehall and Number 10 as a plan was formulated, the facts according to the British government were released in full, and phones began to ring constantly asking for comment. Darcy was under strict instructions to memorise the entire party line and all of its nuances and interpretations, because he was about to GO ON A MEDIA TOUR THE LIKES OF WHICH HE HAD NEVER SEEN IN HIS MISERABLE PUBLIC SCHOOL OXBRIGE LIFE AND SO HELP [Mr Gardiner] IF HE FUCKED THIS UP NOT ONLY WOULD HE HAVE TO DEAL WITH THE END OF HIS POLITICAL CAREER BUT HE WOULD BE STARING DOWN THE BARREL OF HIS OWN GELDING COURTESY OF [Mr Gardiner] DID [Mr Gardiner] MAKE [himself] ENTIRELY FUCKING CLEAR YOU LITTLE SHIT.

Darcy, to his credit, took the stream of abuse and threats to his manhood rather well. He returned to his domain to ponder the potential ramifications for his career, and Elizabeth began browbeating any reporters who had the temerity to question the interpretation of the facts which she was championing.

Much to everyone’s surprise (not that any of them would admit it afterwards), the next day went off without a hitch. UKIP splintered into four disparate parties and an independent, none of which had any hope, the government remained as untainted as could be considering the fact that they were the ones who allowed the Brexit proceedings to get as unpleasant as they did, and everyone got to keep their jobs. It was, by all accounts, a rather excellent coup.

Which was why Elizabeth was surprised to see at 8.45, as she was getting ready to leave at the end of what had been an exhausting couple of days, an email from one Fitzwilliam Darcy updating his schedule for the day. Not only because he knew full well that he was off Elizabeth’s shit list after the day’s performance, but because the agenda update was for a _Meeting with E. Bennet_ at 8.50.

At 8.47, Darcy entered her office in some not inconsiderable altitude of dudgeon, and closed the door with some finality. Elizabeth was at that moment pacing her office, barefoot, while she stretched. It had been, after all, a long couple of days, and she had intended to be as relaxed and alert as possible for whatever Darcy needed to speak to her about. Darcy, however, seemed to be well versed in the theory of wrong-footing one’s opponent, a key tenet of which was to give them just enough notice to know that you were coming, but no indication as to why, and then arrive early, so that they weren’t even able to prepare _in_ adequately.

Unfortunately for him, Elizabeth was also well versed in these techniques, employing them on a regular basis to much professional game. It was, however, still disconcerting. Especially when he went off-script (or off her script at least), grabbing her by the elbow and steering her to the one spot in the room which was invisible from every window and doorway. Elizabeth was well acquainted with this spot, as she used it for naps on days such as the one she had just finished, when there had been very little sleep the preceeding week, and it was that or take up casual disembowelling. She was surprised that in the brief time Darcy had been in her office the night before he had managed to deduce the spot without actually having reconnoitred the place.

And so, Elizabeth found herself enclosed in her office, entirely out of view of everyone who might be of a mind to look in, having been lightly manhandled by a member of Her Majesty’s cabinet, being loomed over in a not entirely threatening and yet not at all friendly manner by the cabinet member in question. Who looked significantly better than he had any right to, given the two days he had just experienced, and who smelled rather nice. And who was remarkably well-built for looming. Elizabeth shook herself mentally, and assigned all this frankly unprofessional contemplation to sleep deprivation, as it was most unlike her, and looked up at Darcy with a bland expression which invited him to both remove his hand from her person, and to get on with it. He obliged.

“What the hell are you playing at?” It was half a question and half a statement.

His obliging apparently didn’t extend as far as an explanation. “Do you care to be slightly more specific?” Elizabeth invited.

“I was under the distinct impression that you and E were…” he paused, at a loss for words. After a few moments of vague and ineffectual hand gestures, he sagged slightly and looked at Elizabeth in a manner somewhere between inscrutable and pleading.

Elizabeth, who was in no mood for shilly-shallying, said in the sort of calm voice favoured by childcare workers dealing with fractious toddlers, “Use your words,” which gained her a withering look from the target of her entreaty.

“Were you and Evelyn not… involved?” Darcy at least had the grace to look uncomfortable asking the question.

“No.” It was Elizabeth's turn to give a withering look. “Was there some indication given that we were?”

“Not as such. It just seemed like the two of you were…” Darcy seemed to be having considerable trouble articulating whatever had him in such dudgeon when he arrived. He was, in fact, starting to look slightly flustered. It was almost adorable. Not that six-foot-something Conservatives could ever truly be described as ‘cute’. “It seemed as if the two of you were headed towards some kind of… assignation.”

“Stepping past the fact that you made it sound like we were in a regency novel and engaging in some variety of rank impropriety, I was not aware of any such intent. That isn’t to say that I wouldn’t have been receptive to it had the opportunity arose, but it didn’t, so that’s irrelevant. Might I ask why it is you stormed into my office to enquire as to the state of my socio-romantic life, which, for your information, is both deeply depressing and considerably barren.” Darcy seemed to Elizabeth like the sort of properly brought up/stick up the backside chaps who became exceedingly awkward when inundated with personal minutiae. She was correct. His evident discomfort ratcheted up a notch.

After the briefest moment when Elizabeth could have sworn she saw a flash of panic in his eyes, he continued on the offensive. “What were you playing at, setting Evelyn up with your sister?”

“Come again?”

“Last night. Him accompanying your sister to the opera. You’re telling me that that wasn’t intentional and planned?”

“No.”

“Ah.” Darcy looked exceedingly embarrassed.

“Care to elaborate?” Elizabeth invited, crossing her arms.

“You had no idea that your sister seems to be the thesis of his ideal woman in all areas of personality, aesthetic, and preference?”

“Come again?”

“He’s thoroughly infatuated. I’ve known him literally his whole life, so I do have some vested interest in his happiness, and he has never been this interested in a girl after one meeting ever.”

Elizabeth was starting to smile despite herself, a predatory grin stealing across her face. “Good for Mary,” she breathed. “She is going to flip.”

“Excuse me?”

Elizabeth gave off a bark of laughter. “Oh no, my good man. You don’t get to ask questions just yet. _You’re_ the one who stormed into _my_ office, and dragged me into the one blind spot, don’t think I didn’t notice, and started casting aspersions upon my character. Not for the first time, might I add.”

Darcy sighed. “I’m back on your shit list, aren’t I.”

“That very much depends on how you answer the following questions,” Elizabeth replied, crossing her arms and once again looking up at Darcy with a bland expression. “Firstly, why did you think that Evelyn and I were, if not in some way involved, at least heading that way?”

“You were spending a lot of time in each other’s company, and also various things which I’m not at liberty to discuss.”

Elizabeth raised an eyebrow in a threatening manner. Or at least as threatening a manner as an eyebrow could be raised. “I’m sure you’re not,” she commented with a not insignificant note of disdain. “Never mind that, why did you think that my introducing him to Mary was in some way premeditated?”

Were Darcy a gentleman of less dignity, he probably would have been squirming under Elizabeth’s scrutiny by then. To his credit, he was not, and so he wasn’t. “It all seemed a bit… convenient.”

“You think I manufactured the collapse of a political party which held sixty or so seats merely so that I could try setting up my deeply ununderstandable and often exceedingly difficult to be around younger sister with a friend?”

Darcy paused at that new analysis. “This conversation isn’t going to end well for me, is it?” he enquired in a defeated tone.

“Probably not,” Elizabeth confirmed, before continuing with her line of questioning. “So you’re saying that Mary, pathological accumulator of degrees, Mary, violent sport and lifting enthusiast, Mary, disgusting music snob, ex-goth, more than passingly popular occasional fanfiction writer, Mary, enjoys actively tormenting my mother by dressing in a very butch manner almost all of the time such that my mother isn’t convinced that she’s not a lesbian who happens to be out to literally everyone except her, Mary, bagpipe playing _Mary_ is everything that Evelyn Fitzwilliam was ever looking for in a woman? Is that what the fuck you are saying to me on this day?”

“Oh god. She doesn’t play the bagpipes, surely,” Darcy looked desperate.

“Would that it were untrue,” Elizabeth confirmed, adding, “you’re not the one who had to deal with her practicing about the house. Why?”

“He actually enjoys the sound of bagpipes.”

“Christ,” Elizabeth breathed. “What are the odds.” Darcy gave her a look which spoke volumes on their acquaintance, which prompted her to ask, “He has no idea you’re over here interrogating me, does he.”

“That is correct,” Darcy admitted. “He’s off training his little cadets, and to be honest he wouldn’t be best pleased with my interference in matters.”

“Interference meaning you coming over here to ask me if this is all part of some convoluted master plan to marry my sister off to the younger brother of a peer of the realm?”

“That is one interpretation of events,” was his concession.

“It’s the one I’m sticking with,” Elizabeth confirmed.

“And why is it that you think that your sister will not be receptive to this information?” Darcy enquired, feeling that he was now at liberty to make enquiries of his own, “Given that I take it you have no objections on the subject.”

Elizabeth regarded Darcy in a circumspect manner, decided that he was unlikely to ever revisit the evening’s events in his own mind, let alone relate them to anyone, and figured that he had been crucified on the altar of his own hubris (although technically it was tinged with pique as well) for long enough. “Mary has not historically dealt well with being the recipient of the affections of others.”

Now it was Darcy’s turn to accuse her of being coy. He also didn’t like the smile of faintly malicious delight which was making its way over her features. “You’re going to have to be slightly more specific.”

“Mary was a somewhat awkward child growing up, and while she’s turned into a rather excellent young woman, she doesn’t seem to be quite as sure of that. She tends to believe that anyone who expresses romantic interest in her is in some way not serious, and tends to treat them as such, despite any and all evidence and opinion to the contrary. If, as you say, Major and probably soon to be Colonel Fitzwilliam is indeed serious in his regard for her she is going to flip her little terrified of human connection lid.” Darcy cocked an eyebrow as an invitation for Elizabeth to continue.

She took the invitation. “There’s a guy she met in first year who has been, admittedly half-heartedly, pursuing her since then, so for the vast majority of a decade, and whenever his suit is mentioned, the invariable reply is ‘lol fuck off’ delivered in a tone which says that not only does she doubt the veracity of the implication, she doubts the even theoretical possibility of it. There have been various other passing swains, but the gist of the matter is that Mary refuses to believe that anyone could possibly be interested in her romantically. Which given the fact that she’s spent almost a decade surrounded by engineering students, and before that went to an all-girls school, and before _that_ lived in a virtually all female household, isn’t entirely surprising. The point, however, remains that not only will it be incredibly difficult for Fitzwilliam to convince her that he’s serious, but when he does, she’s likely to have a reasonably major nervous breakdown, because if there’s one thing Mary isn’t adept at dealing with, it’s _feelings_.”

Darcy looked slightly stunned. “Am I at liberty to pass on any of that information?” he enquired after a very long moment.

“By all means, although good luck explaining how you came to know it,” Elizabeth pointed out. “After all, if he’s serious, he is going to need all the help he can get, poor sod.” Almost involuntarily, she grinned again. “Go Mary!” she breathed.

Darcy looked at her sharply, and Elizabeth returned a look which was equally sharp. “Should I not be happy that my sister has somehow captured the regard of someone whom I know to be an excellent gentleman and stellar conversationalist? I know that it was through no efforts of her own whatsoever, because when I left the two of them, she was in disapproving matron mode, which is what she does whenever the males she encounters aren’t immediately terrified of her by dint of her physical presence or reputation, and is definitely not what she was doing if the aim was for him to like her.”

At this, Darcy smirked. “That sounds slightly familiar,” he noted, looking down at Elizabeth with something which could have been characterised as fondness if such an idea weren’t so patently ridiculous.

Elizabeth stretched, rising up onto her toes, and still only barely clearing Darcy’s shoulder with her eyes. “If that’s all, I’m exhausted from the last couple of days, and doubtless, so are you. Out of deference to the excellent job you did with the media today, I’m going to forget that this conversation ever took place, and go home, and I suggest that you do the same.” Without waiting for a reply, Elizabeth put her shoes back on, grabbed her bag and coat, and opened the door, waiting for Darcy to exit before following him out, doing an excellent job of suppressing the giggles which so desperately wanted to burst forth at the sheer absurdity of the entire conversation.

To her surprise, Darcy walked her as far as the tube station before bidding her farewell. The moment he was out of sight, Elizabeth pulled out her phone and dialled Charlotte.

“Char, I hope you’re home, because I have the story to end all stories right now and you are going to want to hear this shit in person.”


	8. In which facts are relayed, events are remarked upon, and an attempt is made at having a serious heart-to-heart.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charlotte is having none of anyone's bullshit, Mary is firmly in denial, and Elizabeth is beginning to think that her life is starting to resemble a Kafkaesque farce, which is never a good situation in which to find oneself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter is a bit of a set-up for the next few, which are going to be deliciously action-packed. Or at least as action packed as chapters ever get in this fic. I apologise for the lack of Darcy and the lack of Fitzwilliam, which is almost certainly going to continue through chapter 9 as well, but they will very much be back in chapter 10, so just hang in there. It'll be worth it, I promise.
> 
> In the meantime, I have provided you with more of the romantically useless Mary whom you all seemed to enjoy.

Elizabeth swanned into Charlotte’s apartment, proclaiming “Harken, ye children, for I bring news of great import!”

Charlotte looked up from the salad she was preparing so that she could very obviously roll her eyes. “Cut the shit, Lizzie, and set the table. You’ve got me intrigued, but that doesn’t mean I have time for your penchant for the dramatic. Soon we shall eat, and you can tell me whatever it is you’re dying to share then.” Charlotte paused for a moment, looking shrewdly at Elizabeth, before continuing, “In a concise and timely manner.”

Elizabeth did as she was bid, all the while grumbling good naturedly. Eventually, Charlotte was seated across from her, and after they had eaten a few bites, finally took pity on her friend, who looked to be bursting with the news of great import she had heralded. “Alright, Lizzie,” she sighed, “verily doth I harken.”

“Ohohohohoho. Ok. Wow. Yeah.”

“Elizabeth Bennet, if you don’t immediately start relating something coherent and meaningful, I am going to throw some lettuce at you.” Years of friendship meant that both of them knew that it wasn’t an idle threat.

“First things first, I now know for a fact that if there was anything of romantic interest between me and Fitzwilliam the younger, that is now entirely off the cards. Also, it turns out that WhiteBoy McPrivilegeFace is no longer the only eligible chap to be nosing about Mary. She, however, is not to my knowledge yet aware of this fact. Also, the Minister for being the bane of my existence has been acting weird, although that’s more of just a ‘by the way’ than being the news of great import.” Elizabeth smiled brightly as Charlotte deliberately chewed and looked blankly into the middle distance.

“I’m going to need details,” Charlotte prompted. “Let’s start with how you now have concrete facts regarding Major Tragic Backstory and his designs on your person.”

“So as I was leaving this evening, I am accosted by Mr Darcy, who somehow managed to divine the location of that blind spot we spent an hour and a half divining the extent of back when I first got the office, and physically hustled me into it, like steering from the elbow level physical hustling, which was interesting on an academic level, because he’s a solid looking chap but I can now say from experience that he’s stronger than he looks, and that awoke some strangely fluttery feelings inside of me, which I’m not sure I’m ok with the existence of. I recognise that he’s an objectively attractive man, but since when has conventional attractiveness—what the fuck, Charlotte?”

“You were digressing. I was getting bored.” Charlotte had made good on the lettuce threat. “Please return to the original topic, bearing in mind that I have a lot of salad left to be ammunition.”

“So I was accosted in my office and chivvied into the blind spot, where he proceeded to interrogate me as to the nature of my relationship with Evelyn. Apparently he was under the impression that we were if not currently involved, at least heading in that general direction,”

“I fucking told you,” Charlotte interrupted, “did I not tell you that there was an undercurrent of something in your perpetual flirting?”

“You did say that, Charlotte dearest, but you were, like he was, sadly mistaken. After I informed him that nothing had happened between Fitzwilliam and I, he enquired as to my motives for sending Fitzwilliam to the Opera with Mary in my stead,”

“You sent Fitzwilliam to the Opera with Mary in your stead?” Charlotte asked.

“Do you not recall that thing last night with the collapse and splintering of what was previously a reasonably majorish political party? I’m reliably informed that it was very well publicised.”

“Ah. Yes. Continue.”

“I had zero warning, so I needed to find a warm body, and slightly more to the point, they needed to be able to survive an evening with Mary, and he was not only available, but he grew up with Lord Tristan, so he must have a pretty high tolerance for the ridiculous, and while friends don’t foist Mary upon friends without significant warning, I had a bit of a scandal to hush up until the moment we chose for the unhushing, and I was desperate.”

“So he enquired as to your motives,” Charlotte prompted, toying with her salad in a slightly threatening manner.

“He did indeed. I enquired as to why he was enquiring, and he let slip that he thought that I had done it intentionally. As it happens, Major Evelyn Fitzwilliam is a man of interesting and discerning taste. Apparently, if one had to create a woman who was the complete package of exactly what he wanted in a woman, from personality to hobbies to aesthetic to truly unfortunate choices of musical instrument..” Elizabeth trailed off to waggle her eyebrows aggressively.

“Surely fucking not,” Charlotte breathed.

“Surely fucking apparently yes,” Elizabeth confirmed. “Apparently, after an evening of Mary being wildly spinsterish and disapproving, he is rather smitten. Smitten to the point that Darcy was sufficiently concerned to confront me on the subject.”

At this, Charlotte burst into a fit of laughter which was both loud and full-bodied. When she had recovered sufficiently, she gasped, “And how is WhiteBoy McPrivilegeFace? Has he popped up lately?”’

Elizabeth shrugged eloquently. “Not that I’ve heard her complaining about, but then I haven’t really seen her of late, so I have no idea.”

“She’s still convinced that he’s fucking with her as part of some long-game strategy?”

“Yup.”

“It must be nice to live in a world where she can just denial her way out of potentially emotionally fraught situations.”

“She certainly seems to be enjoying it.”

When eventually she returned home that evening, Elizabeth found Jane sitting curled up on the sofa next to her delightful chunk of man-candy, and so was not able to relive the delightful news that not only did Mary have another suitor (Mary’s rank refusal to receive the advances of her admirers, as it stemmed not from disinterest but disbelief, was a perpetual source of hilarity among her older sisters). That discussion took place the next morning, along with some concerted teasing on Elizabeth’s part, and ever deepening blushing on Jane’s.

The next month passed without major incident (which only made Elizabeth feel that some horrific political scandal was about to break, because the Fates were cruel mistresses, and loth to let the Westminster media relations department have sufficient time to catch up on everyday mundanities like paperwork), with the exception of Jane contracting a semi-serious case of the sniffles and proving the truth behind the adage that doctors were the worst patients, and Jane inviting her boyfriend over for dinner (after the horror of the sniffles) to meet Elizabeth. Elizabeth found him a charming personage, and exactly the type of man whom she would, if pressed, describe as a ‘nice young man’.

There then came two incidents in quick succession, neither of them political in nature, but both of them rather surprising. The first was that one evening, Jane phoned Elizabeth in what was close to squealing hysterics, to let her know that Charles had proposed to her, and that she had accepted. This was both surprising and unsurprising. Surprising, because they had barely known each other for three months, and as far as she was aware, Mr Bingley was a British citizen and as such not at risk of deportation or other immigration-related SNAFU which might necessitate a marriage of convenience, and regardless of how much they fancied themselves in love with each other, three months was perhaps a bit quick in that day and age. Unsurprising, because it was clearly evident from the way they looked at and acted around each other that they were completely and utterly in love, and in a situation like that there was no point delaying things, and Elizabeth was sure that they would be delightfully happy together. Even if it was likely to play havoc with her living situation.

The second incident was entirely unsurprising, insofar as it had been foreshadowed heavily by everyone acquainted with the particulars of the situation, most of all Elizabeth. One damp and drizzly Thursday afternoon, the door to Elizabeth’s office slammed open and then slammed closed in short order. Elizabeth looked up to see her sister Mary storming towards her desk looking positively murderous.

“Mary,” Elizabeth commented mildly, “to what do I owe the pleasure?” It was clearly something major, otherwise Mary would have sent a terse email, as was her more usual habit. Elizabeth, however, could not begin to fathom what she could have done to elicit such ire.

Mary just stared at her sister, subsumed with impotent rage, before finally managing to splutter “What the fuck were you thinking?”

Elizabeth sighed and pushed her chair away from her desk. “Take a seat, Mary. I’m going to make a pot of tea while you work to formulate a coherent way to phrase whatever issue had you storming in here, and we’ll discuss when I get back.”

Mary did as she was bid, albeit with noticeable petulance, and Elizabeth went to make some tea, partially because she was in the mood for tea, and partially because she had seen in Mary a glimpse of terror, which meant that she was trying to mask her feelings with rage, which was hardly healthy. Better for everyone involved to give her some time to figure out how to articulate her feelings. When the tea had brewed, Elizabeth carried it back to her office along with two mugs, placed everything on the desk, and took a seat next to Mary, who was already pouring the tea. “Have you taken the opportunity to corral your thoughts?” she enquired.

Mary glared eloquently, but forebore to speak. “You didn’t come here just for the tea, Mary,” Elizabeth pointed out, “this isn’t your style.”

Mary sighed. “I think I’ve caught feelings, and it’s all your fault.”

“Oh yes?”

“You decided to send me to the opera with some wildly handsome gentleman who was charming and wonderful the entire night, and who proceeded to keep in contact with me and continued to be charming and wonderful and handsome as our acquaintance progressed, and now whenever he messages or calls me I get this weird fluttery feeling inside of me, and that’s nothing on what happens whenever we meet for coffee, because I get all nervous and shit, and I do not have time for this bullshit because I have a PhD to finish. I have spent the past eight and a half years surrounded by men, and this has never happened before, and I don’t like it.”

“But you like him?” Elizabeth prompted, taking a sip of her tea.

“Do I?” Mary almost wailed. “I don’t know! I have actually zero experience with these things.”

Elizabeth dug the fingernails of the hand not holding a mug into the muscle at the base of her thumb in the hope that the pain would stop her from dissolving into giggling. She was in luck. It worked. “It sounds,” Elizabeth began, thinking that perhaps it was in her best interest not to share just how much she knew of Fitzwilliam’s opinions on the matter – Mary didn’t need to know that he had been occasionally quizzing Elizabeth on her sister in an attempt to neither scare her off nor let her think that he was merely aiming to befriend her, “as if you might like him. On a personal level. In a romantic sense.” Each additional explanation was proffered in response to Mary’s continuing blank looks.

“Lizzie, I swear to god, I am not in the mood for your usual bullshit right now,” Mary offered quietly.

“Mary, for once I’m not bullshitting. I’m serious. I think that you have a bit of a crush.”

“But why now?” Mary was straying very close to wailing territory. “I’m twenty-six for fuck’s sake. I made it this far without having to deal with shit like this. I don’t have the emotional energy for this. I don’t even have the fucking emotional range.”

Elizabeth sipped her tea and waited for the melodrama to cease. Presently it did, and she continued, “Your age and history have nothing to do with it, Mary. Who knows. Maybe you’re just a late bloomer. Maybe the whole engineering thing wasn’t the best for your social development. It sounds like you like him, and as much as you hate that fact, you’re going to have to come to terms with it.”

“This couldn’t have waited until I finished?” Mary had apparently reached the bargaining stage of the bad-news cycle.

“Apparently not, squirt,” Elizabeth said, slipping into an old nickname she had used when Mary was a child. “The irritating thing about emotions is that they rarely wait patiently until you reach a juncture where you are able to deal with them. They tend to just, you know, hit. Are you going to do anything about this?”

Mary snorted with surprising derision for someone who had been on the verge of having a fit of the vapours only moments earlier. “Lol no. Are you kidding? I’m going to do what I do whenever something that I don’t want to deal with crops up. I’m going to ignore the in the hope that it goes away.”

“You’re going to ignore your feelings in the hope that they stop asserting themselves?” Elizabeth sought to confirm.

“I’ve been doing it for years, Lizzie, and it’s been working just fine,” Mary replied with some level of smugness.

Elizabeth, feeling uncharitable, after all, Mary had invaded _her_ office with _her_ emotionally stunted state, and now had the temerity to look _smug_ , leaned back in her chair, and said, “While we’re on the subject of wilfully ignoring things you don’t want to deal with in the hope that they’ll go away, has RowingSheds McDouchebagFace popped up lately?”

Unexpectedly, Mary blushed. This was not the usual reaction whenever what’s-his-name, her old undergraduate nemesis was mentioned. There was usually much rolling of eyes and creative, expletive-rich nicknaming. There was not usually blushing.

“Oh he has, has he?” Elizabeth surmised. “Dare I ask if anything happened?”

Mary didn’t stop blushing, but did manage to fix her sister with a truly blistering glare, a look which would have been more effective if not for the fact that Elizabeth had twenty-six years experience dealing with Mary and was, as such, used to her glares. Elizabeth countered with a bland look of polite interest.

“He happened to be at the opera as well, with the usual leggy blonde in tow, and while we were exchanging the kind of social niceties which polite society seems to prefer to me elbowing him in the kidneys and walking off because he’s a pathetic excuse for a human being and is literally the scum of the earth, Evelyn somehow sensed that I needed both a conversational out and to win the dickwaving contest implicit in the conversation, and so appears, pretending to be my boyfriend. In a manner almost identical to all those ‘fake boyfriend/girlfriend’ fics I used to so enjoy reading when I was young and stupid. So I won the dickwaving contest, but also everything is very confusing and I don’t like feelings and everything is terrible and nothing is ok.”

“You do realise, Mary,” Elizabeth began, treading a fairly familiar conversational path, “that his continued interest in you is by now reasonably unlikely to be fuelled by some strange need for sexual conquest. Eight years is a pretty long time for him to still be obsessing over the one that got away when he was a fresher. You might have to accept that his interest in you might, on some very slight level, be every so marginally genuine.”

Mary rolled her eyes. “Come on, Lizzie. Next thing I know, you’ll be telling me that Evelyn actually likes me in a non-platonic sense.” Her tone made it very clear that she found the very notion ridiculous.

Elizabeth merely raised an eyebrow and regarded her sister. Mary finished her tea and placed a hand on Elizabeth’s shoulder. “You’re out of your fucking mind, dear sibling, and you are entirely full of shit. Thank you for the tea, your eternal flair for the ridiculous has shown me that I was letting my imagination run away from me, and I’m going to go and write some more of my thesis now that I’m no longer tortured by strange and foreign feelings.”

With that, Mary swept from elizabeth’s office with about as much notice as with which in had she swept, muttering “fucking mental,” with a fond smile on her face. The door closed, and Elizabeth reflected on the farce which her interpersonal interactions was very much starting to resemble, and remarked to nobody in particular, “Well that went well.”


	9. In which there is not much dialogue, but new friends are made, old friends are commented upon, and foundations are laid for later developments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The leadup to Jane's wedding - party planning, dress choices, slightly awkward social situations, and some rousing debate on the topic of phallus-shaped foodstuffs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter conveniently ignores the extent of Bingley’s family in canon – he’s meant to have something like six sisters or something equally ridiculous. Given that the only ones ever mentioned are Caroline and Louisa, I’m pretending that they’re the only ones that exist.  
> Also, I apologise for the profound lack of Darcy in this chapter. I promise that I will make it up to you in chapter 10. In the meantime, I’ve been feeling the Mary quite a lot, so here’s a lot of Mary. Also oodles of Caroline, because she’s just so fun.

Jane and her intended, being surgeons, had schedules not at all conducive to actually organising their own wedding. Luckily for them, they were surrounded by people well-placed to do just such a thing. An old university chum of Bingley’s, whose ancestral home was now apparently one of the premiere wedding locations, despite (or perhaps due to) the fact that it was in the wilds of Derbyshire offered, in lieu of wedding present, to host the celebration. This offer was immediately accepted. Unfortunately, this offer was for a date barely four months hence, because when given the choice between that date and one two and a half years down the road, those being the only available dates which weren’t weekends with holidays or festivals of the variety which tended to involve a number of trips to A&E, they had plumped for sooner rather than later.

And then had proceeded to leave the bulk of the organising to Bingley’s younger sister, Caroline, and the elder two of Jane’s younger sisters, Elizabeth and Mary. And Mary had taken a look at her diary, laughed heartily, and said that she was available for small tasks here and there as fit within her skillset, but otherwise she was unavailable; so really, it was down to Elizabeth and the mysterious Caroline. Mysterious, because Jane, sweet, kind, lovely Jane, had described her as ‘unexpected’. To provide context, Jane also tended to describe Mary as ‘unexpected’.

It so happened, that in order to better get to know one another, Elizabeth and Mary found themselves invited to Bingley's sister’s townhouse, which was in a not all bad part of town. Jane was, of course, also invited, but she was already there, having worked the night shift, and at his insistence, agreed to go home with him that morning for a shower and nap.

Elizabeth recognised the street as being a few blocks from the Fitzwilliam residence, and wondered for a moment how things were going between Evelyn and her younger sister. She had had less opportunity to chat with him about it of late, partially because when not dealing with Darcy’s scheduling or training his little cadets, he was invariably having coffee with Mary, and debating some absurd facet of set theory, heeding Elizabeth’s advice to tread carefully and not expect any kind of emotional depth from Mary until she submitted her doctoral thesis. To his credit, he seemed more or less content to simply befriend Mary, and occasionally distract her from the horrors of her impending completion. There had also been remarkably little time to discuss his abortive attempts to steer this acquaintance in a romantic direction (he seemed not to believe Elizabeth when she told him, repeatedly, that anything he tried, she would dismiss out of hand as ‘we’re just friends’, which was slightly entertaining in and of itself), because the few times that he and Elizabeth had been able to converse, he had related the fact that Darcy was brooding vocally, and he needed to vent to someone, lest he find himself lacing the bourbon with arsenic.

Apparently, an old friend of Darcy’s had gotten himself attached to some young woman of middling breeding, but excellent professional reputation, after a few short months of acquaintance, and apparently this was emblematic of this chap, who had a tendency to fancy himself in love at the faintest provocation, although admittedly he had never before proposed to someone, which was a point in favour of the relationship being founded on something real, but apparently the young lady herself, while perfectly sweet, just wasn’t what he felt his friend’s standards should be. Apparently the word ‘settling’ was being bandied about quite a lot, and not in the sense of ‘settling down’.

This was all deliciously intriguing gossip, which had Elizabeth listening in rapt attention, afternoon after afternoon. She had also taken to playing a semi-regular game of chess with his brother, with whom she discussed his unfortunate crush on Mary, to much sympathetic murmuring. Lord Tristan was a firm believer in the fact that his brother would get his act together eventually, corral his manhood, and approach Mary, but an equally firm believer in leaving his brother alone until that time came. Not to mention the fact that it was inordinately entertaining to watch her father be needled conversationally by a member of the landed gentry who gave new meaning to the concept of ‘eccentric elites’.

They knocked on the door, and were greeted by someone who could only be Caroline. This was evident for two reasons. The first, given the multiple piercings up the shells of each ear, the eyebrow piercing, septum ring, and masses of long black hair with numerous broad iridescent streaks through it combined with clearly expensive jeans and a singlet with the sleeves cut off, and a good amount of the side of the singlet removed along with them, under which was clearly visible a fluorescent yellow Nike crop top (the swoosh was not visible, but Mary later assured her that the only brand which made activewear in that particular hue was Nike), exemplified perfectly what Jane might refer to as ‘unexpected’. The second was that she had looked at Mary, Mary had looked at her, and in some magical ‘unexpected’ hive mind moment, had resolved to be best friends forever.

“You must be Elizabeth and Mary. It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Caroline.” Hands were shaken, and they were led inside. Seated on stools next to a bench in the middle of the palatial kitchen (Mary, who enjoyed recreational baking now and then, looked around in awe and some not inconsiderable jealousy – her university accommodation boasted a four burner electric stove, a combined microwave/convection oven, and nothing else. And she was rarely home for long enough to make use of the well-apportioned kitchen there) with cups of tea in front of them, were Jane and her betrothed, and slightly more surprisingly, both Fitzwilliams.

There followed a flurry of introductions, as Mary, as it turned out, had not been acquainted with either Bingley or Fitzwilliam major. Bingley she greeted with a smile, because she trusted implicitly in Jane’s ability to make good decisions for herself. Lord Tristan was his usual effusive self, flouncing over to Mary and kissing her on the hand in greeting, to which Mary raised both eyebrows as high as they would go, and directed them at Fitzwilliam minor, who merely shrugged in a long-suffering manner, a wry smile on his face. “Tris just dropped by with some tea from the most delightfully obscure little Asian grocer. He and I are constantly trying to outdo each other, finding the most ‘authentic’” the air quotes were implied in her tone, even if she did not physically mime them, “place to buy tea here in London, which I recognise is disgustingly #WhitePeople, but it also means that I have access to some really excellent teas, so I can’t be too disgusted with myself.”

“And what of Evelyn?” Elizabeth enquired.

“Poor lad had nothing better to do of a morning, so I dragged him along,” Lord Tristan drawled. “He’s been terribly mopey of late,” this was said with what might have been construed as a glance at Mary, but could equally have been an expansive look about the room, “so I thought an airing might do him some good.”

This was all a lie, as well Elizabeth knew. Lord Tristan knew of his brother’s interest in her younger sister, and through his various nefarious contacts undoubtedly managed to ascertain the fact that Mary was going to be meeting her sister’s fiancé’s family (she was entirely unsurprised that he was chummy with Caroline. From what little acquaintance she had made of Caroline, she seemed exactly the sort of woman with whom he would be chummy), and so had decided to take a look for himself. He seemed more than anything intrigued with what he found. This was, in and of itself, not entirely surprising, as if Caroline was exactly the sort of woman with whom Lord Tristan might become chummy, so too was Mary.

Mary, to her credit, was being delightfully and most obligingly unobservant, and was entirely unaware of the attention of both Fitzwilliams upon her. And the attention of Caroline which that attention garnered.

After the departure of the Fitzwilliam siblings, there followed a delightfully civilised brunch, even if Elizabeth felt a little on the outside, what with Jane and Bingley so wrapped up in each other, and Caroline and Mary taking to each other as if raised from the cradle together, so much so that she couldn’t help but wonder, ever so slightly, if perhaps their mother had been on to something during her years of lamenting that Mary was clearly a lesbian, who just hadn’t told her of that fact just to spite her, and did she have any idea of what such secret keeping was doing to her poor nerves et cetera. She then felt immediately ashamed of that thought, but still picked up on what seemed to be an undercurrent of flirting on Caroline’s part. She would be sorely disappointed were that indeed the case, because as far as Elizabeth was aware, Mary was just as useless at interpreting interest from women as such as she was from men.

Following brunch came the first forays into planning what was left to organise, the venue taking care of the majority of the tasks. There was first the engagement party, then a kitchen tea for Jane’s friends, and then the Hen’s Night. The engagement party was apparently more or less covered, with thanks to Lord Tristan and the fact that he knew absolutely everyone involved with absolutely everything, and was to be a reasonably sedate affair involving wine and canapes. This was said in a manner which implied that Caroline rather doubted the veracity of the statement, but was nonetheless reporting what she herself had been told. Elizabeth supposed that the word which worried her the most was ‘reasonably’. Knowing what she did of Lord Tristan, she felt that that could be a remarkably dangerous word when he bandied it about.

The kitchen tea was planned by Caroline and Mary with remarkably little input from anyone else. At one point, as they debated the relative merits of separate profiterole and éclair cock-and-balls shaped arrangements and single piece cock-and-balls shaped choux pastries, Elizabeth caught Jane’s eye across the table, and shared a look which wondered when they had become so jaded that their once baby sister was discussing genitalia-shaped baked goods and they weren’t even batting an eyelid. Jane shrugged in a way which seemed to say, ‘she’s having fun, let’s leave her to it’. With an assurance from Jane that she would invite people on the date specified, and a promise from Mary that she would be able to do the baking for it, provided access to a decent kitchen, which Caroline was happy to provide, that piece of planning was dispensed with.

When the topic of the Hen’s Night was brought up, Caroline deferred to Elizabeth, who was to be Jane’s maid of honour. A turn of events which Mary, ever a mistress of understatement, had referred to as ‘hardly a surprise’. Elizabeth had heard from Charlotte of a new fad which involved playing laser-tag while heavily inebriated, which seemed like an excellent activity, and marginally more Jane’s style than a pub crawl while wearing ugly synthetic sashes and pink tutus. This was declared a reasonably good idea. The backup option of borrowing Charlotte’s projector and projecting various films and musicals, while having an aggressively boozy sing-along was also mentioned as an aside, and Jane’s face lit up. Caroline looked up from where she had been taking notes, looked at Jane’s evident delight, looked at Elizabeth as if she were disappointed in her for suggesting something so mundane for her future sister-in-law’s final night as an unmarried woman, looked at Mary, who shrugged in a manner which said ‘how do you think I feel, living with them for twenty-six years?’, sighed expansively, and crossed out the last two paragraphs she had written, inscribing instead _Sound of Music and enough vodka to neutralise a yak._

The conversation then turned to dresses, as tended to be the case when a wedding was in the offing, and people had run out of things to talk about. This dress was being made by Mrs Bennet, who in all likelihood had listened to everything Jane had said about the dress she wanted, and then promptly ignored it all, but would nonetheless turn out an excellent garment, as had been her trade for years. Then came a discussion of the bridesmaid’s dresses, which were all going to be of the same colour, but different styles as suited the varying physiques and personal tastes of Jane’s four sisters.

Eventually there was no more conversation to be had, and so after a lengthy period of goodbyes, wherein Elizabeth noticed Mary and Caroline exchanging business cards, no doubt so that they could continue their acquaintance at a mutually convenient juncture, the Bennet ladies made their exits.

When finally Elizabeth and Jane were back in their apartment, Mary having returned to her lodgings at university, Jane rounded on Elizabeth. “So that’s the Fitzwilliam who you had a passing interest in but who is now by all accounts madly enchanted by Mary?””

“The younger one, yes,” Elizabeth answered.

“Well obviously I didn’t think it was going to be the obviously gay one.” Jane tended to be such a good person that Elizabeth on occasion forgot that she had had exactly the same upbringing as she had herself had. And then she would say something which reminded her that that was indeed very much the case.

“Jane, I am shocked!” Elizabeth protested.

“Oh save it, Lizzie,” Jane said, reclining on the sofa. “You were thinking it.”

Elizabeth conceded that that had, indeed, been the case.

“He seems nice,” Jane ventured. “Quiet, and perhaps a touch disposed to brooding, but nice.”

“Oh, don’t take that interaction at face value. He’s usually a stellar conversationalist. Or at least he always has been with me. And from what I’ve heard from Mary of their interactions. You may have just caught him on a bad day.”

“And he’s really interested in Mary?”

“Yes.”

“Our Mary?”

“Apparently so. She is, if nothing else, certainly an interesting person to be around,” Elizabeth mused.

“Oh it’ll be especially interesting when he realises that she’s under the firm impression that he’s just being friendly, and proceeds to panic and run the moment he tries to actually pursue anything,” Jane considered darkly.

Elizabeth shrugged limply. “I’ve ensured that he’s well aware of her little foibles. Whether he chooses to believe me, or thinks I’m just some foolish older sister who’s out of the loop, I don’t know. What I do know is that I’ve done my best to ensure that he isn’t too surprised when she inevitably freaks out on him. And I’ve instructed him in no uncertain terms to not even consider trying anything until her dissertation is in for marking.”

“That’s a good plan,” Jane agreed, before looking at Elizabeth, her eyes soft. “Are you alright with all this?”

“What?” Elizabeth asked, “Your wedding? I couldn’t be happier for you.”

“No, Lizzie, not that. I mean this new thing between Mary and Fitzwilliam. Or, should I perhaps say, potential thing.”

“Ah. That. I’m fine, Janey, I promise. I never thought it was likely that our friendship was going to turn into anything more than that. He’s lovely, but I think that I’m slightly too domineering a personality for us to have worked in the long term. I need to find someone who’s not afraid to speak up when they think I’m out of line.”

“Like the honourable Fitzgerald Digby, member for Pemberly, Minister for Making Your Life Difficult?” Jane teased.

“Fuck off, Jane,” Elizabeth said with a smile. “He’s hot, don’t get me wrong, and from what I’ve seen, he does his best to look after his friends and family, but he’s also blindingly conservative, and occasionally, a bit of a prick.”

“But you would, though, wouldn’t you. If the opportunity arose?”

“Take a ride on his disco stick, you mean? Engage in the horizontal lambada? Make the beast with two backs?” Elizabeth asked, her tone getting more and more ridiculous as the litany of euphemisms continued. “Probably. Maybe. I don’t know. Since the opportunity is never going to come up, I don’t think it really matters.”

“So that’s a yes?” Jane had an impish grin.

“That’s a categorical possibly.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I get that there wasn’t much dialogue in this chapter, but I promise that all this will be worth it when chapter 10 comes out. Also, keep an eye out during the week for the next update of my Mary-centred side fic, An Evening at the Opera, and Eventually, Other Things. There was a lot of Mary in this chapter, and there’s even more on its way.
> 
> And as always, keep an eye on my writing tumblr, cynicinafishbowl.tumblr.com, for occasional updates, musings, complaints, and out of context excerpts.


	10. in which there is a wedding, and an issue comes to a head.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bagpipes. Men in suits. The galvanising of heteros. Wine. Welcome to the wedding of Jane Bennet and Charles Bingley.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry about the delay, my lovelies. I finished my degree (huzzah/what do I do with my life now o.O), and I even received the prize for best thesis presentation of a student in my course (admittedly it was out of two, so I only had to beat Geoff, whose topic was boring as shit and who also gets nervous when he presents, not to mention the fact that I had five years of international debating experience on him, but hey, I beat Geoff).   
> I then went into a pretty hectic production week for choir (featuring me dressing up as Queen Victoria - check out my insta for pics), and then contracted the sniffles, so the chapter was up a good week and a half later than I would have liked, but hey, it's the second week of June, so it's as I predicted.
> 
> I also realised that when you don't write for a month or so, your skills really atrophy, which is partially why this update took so long. I literally hated everything I produced, and kept deleting. I'm still not entirely happy with this chapter, but at a certain point, *shrug emoji*, it's done. Updates will go back to being weekly on Sundays (or at least vaguely Sunday, usually more like the wee hours of Monday morning Sydney time).
> 
> But anyway, here's Wonderwall.

“You’ve reached Elizabeth Bennet. Leave a message. Be brief.”

* _beeeeeeeeep*_

New message received at 3:42 a.m. from unknown caller.

"In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you. You’re a horrific battle-axe and you’re so mean, and your father is a massive communist, and you’re such a _bitch._ Like _all the time_. What’s _with_ that? But you’re so fucking hot. Or at least scary-hot. Definitely scary-hot. And I can’t stop thinking about you. But you’re some hideously leftie stone cold bitch, and we couldn’t possibly work. And yet...” There were scuffling noises, and a few snippets of conversation before the voicemail ended.

 

“Fitz?”

“Yes Evelyn?”

“Is there a reason why the last text sent from my phone to yours was the contact details of one Elizabeth Bennet?”

“Oh god. Oh god no.”

“What?”

“Oh god I thought that was a dream or something. Fuck.”

“Seriously, Fitz, what did you do?”

“Fuck. I think I may have left an exceedingly sloppy voicemail message on her phone confessing my feelings for her.”

“There are feelings?”

“Obviously not, because I can’t be entertaining feelings about the scariest woman in media relations, not when she’s some left-leaning daughter of the biggest Trot in the House of Lords, regardless of how fascinating and attractive she might well be. Also I’m pretty sure she hates me. Also I’m definitely sure she’ll hate me after she listens to the voicemail.”

“It can’t have been that bad, Fitz.”

“Have you observed any of our interactions, Evie? None of them could really be characterised as having ‘ended well’. Oh god. Hang on, the call log says that the message was only 29 seconds. I can’t have said that much.”

“Oh right! That explains why Charles went all first XV on you and literally tackled you to the ground to wrestle your phone away from you. It seemed a bit out of character for him, but he always was good at saving your from your occasional fits of idiocy.”

“How do I remember none of this?”

“Because, my good man, you were, to quote the one Australian I’m friends with, fucking paralytic last night.”

“Right.”

“Quite.”

“Good-o. That also explains the hangover this morning.”

“I can only imagine.”

 

“Janey!” Elizabeth called, after her laughter had abated.

“What?” Jane asked, poking her head through the door.

“You have got to listen to this.”

“What is it?” Jane sat on the edge of Elizabeth’s bed. “I’m in the midst of packing for my imminent honeymoon, and I’m significantly behind.”

“It’ll be less than a minute, I promise,” Elizabeth said, calling voicemail, and putting her phone on speaker.

Once the message had played, Jane looked over at her younger sister, who was collapsed on her bed, laughing hysterically. “What the fuck was that?”

“Darcy!” Elizabeth gasped. “He left me this voicemail last night. I assume he was absolutely plastered, and then someone tackled his phone off him before he could finish whatever he was going to say.”

“This is the guy who referred to you as ‘some chit’ the first time you encountered each other.”

“Indeed he is.”

“That actually kind of makes sense now. But seriously, we need to be on a train in an hour and a half, and Mary isn’t answering her phone, and mama is going to lose her shit if Mary misses the train.”

“Mary will be there. She’s probably the most punctual of the lot of us. You need to stop freaking out, Jane. Mama is bringing your dress, so as long as you’ve got your heels packed, and you show up, everything is going to end up fine.”

Jane flopped onto her back and groaned. “Why am I stressing?”

“Because you’re getting married and you didn’t get to work out all of your jitters by being an absolute bridezilla.”

“I had you for that,” Jane said, reaching for her sister’s hand and giving it a squeeze.

“Well, let’s be honest, most of it was dealt with by the venue.”

“Still, Lizzie, thanks.”

Mary was, as Elizabeth had predicted, at the train station long before she and Jane. They arrived a full two minutes before the train was due to depart, prompting Mary to glare at the two of them over the frames of her glasses, and then pointedly go back to whatever she was typing on her phone. Once they had found seats, and Elizabeth had started that week’s edition of The Economist, Jane turned to Mary with a bright smile, and waited. Eventually Mary switched off the screen of her phone and faced Jane.

“What?”

“Charles and I were discussing what we wanted playing while I walk down the aisle,”

“And like the nauseatingly adorable white people that you are, you decided that Mary Crawford should play Pachelbel’s Canon on the harp?” Mary enquired, going back to her phone.

“No, we wanted some bagpipes.”

Mary paused, partway through drawing the pattern which unlocked her phone, and looked at her older sister. “You do realise that I don’t have my pipes with me. They’re at home.”

“I know. Kitty’s bringing them.”

Mary stowed her phone in her bag and gave Jane her full attention. “So I have a number of suggestions as to what would be good--”

Jane cut her off. “We want you to play Amazing Grace.”

“I think,” Mary said, crossing her arms, “the fuck not.”

Elizabeth could see that Jane had evidently not prepared for the moment where Mary had stylistic opinions regarding the bagpipes. Which was just poor planning on her part. The undoubtedly pulsating hangover with which Mary was dealing probably wasn’t helping. Elizabeth turned to the next page and kept reading.

“Mary, we discussed it, and we really like the piece, and since you play the bagpipes, we really wanted you to…” Jane trailed off because Mary was rolling her eyes so hard it looked painful.

“Amazing Grace on the bagpipes is just as basic as Pachelbel’s Canon on a harp or string quartet. Only it’s worse, because it is not a piece designed to be played on the pipes. You have to play it like a dirge just to have the melodic progression audible and discernible. Of all the shitty pieces, why?”

“Just… please Mary. We want Amazing grace on the bagpipes, and we want you to do it.”

“Ugh.” Mary retrieved her phone, plugged in headphones, and studiously ignored her sisters for the rest of the train journey.

“Look, Janey,” Elizabeth commented drily, “you got to be a bridezilla.”

Jane poked her in the side and pulled out a book. “You sound scarily like papa when you do that.”

“From whom do you think I learned it?” Elizabeth asked, not bothering to look up.

“Did you literally just rustle your newspaper in a disapproving manner?”

“No comment.”

 

They were collected from the station by Bingley, who greeted his betrothed with a kiss that skirted the bounds of propriety. Eventually they broke apart, both of them colouring delightfully. Mary, evidently still hungover, just grunted and checked her phone, clicking on one notification and smiling. The drive to the wedding venue, some crumbling stately manner, was pleasantly picturesque. Jane and Bingley sat in the front, holding hands (Elizabeth couldn’t help but agree with Mary’s muttered comment about ‘that wouldn’t work if this car had a manual transmission’), Elizabeth watched the scenery, and Mary alternated between dozing and typing on her phone, a small smile playing across her face. It looked to Elizabeth like she didn’t even realise she was smiling. It was adorable. After a twenty-ish minute car ride, they rounded a copse of trees and Elizabeth – much to her shame – gasped. This was no crumbling stately manor. This was a towering edifice to Regency money, with a lake, an avenue, and just a glimpse of what looked like a maze behind the house.

Elizabeth gasped again as they passed through a set of gates, which read ‘Pemberley’. She knew that she was in the constituency, because when the shitstorm which had been the 2017 general election had set in, she had somehow ended up with a knowledge of in which constituency every regional train station was located. She didn’t, however, know that the wedding was at the house which gave the constituency its name.

That was not the biggest surprise of the day before Jane’s wedding.

That surprise came in the form of one Fitzwilliam Darcy, the member for Pemberley, and apparently, also the best friend of Jane’s fiancé, who was hosting the wedding at his stately manor. She hissed this revelation at Jane, who looked at her in surprise. “I thought you knew. The location of the wedding was pretty clearly stated on the invitation.”

“I didn’t get an invitation, remember? My attendance was very much assumed.”

A moment later, when Fitzwilliam appeared and said hello to them (a kiss on the cheek for Elizabeth and Jane, and a pretty lingering hug for Mary), Elizabeth put two, two, and two together – two being Darcy hosting the wedding, Darcy bitching about his best friend’s upcoming wedding so some chick he barely knew, and Darcy being Bingley’s best friend, respectively – and finally came up with six, six in this case being the fact that her world was actually significantly more incestuous than she had originally thought.

To his credit, Darcy seemed reasonably surprised to see that Elizabeth was arriving with the bride to be. It was almost as if he had done no research whatsoever on his best friend’s fiancée, and so hadn’t really realised that she was the older sister of his workplace nemesis. Elizabeth’s gaze cut across to where Fitzwilliam had been chatting to Mary, their heads much closer together than would be assumed of two dudes chilling in a hot-tub, five feet together because they’re both straight; assuming that one of the dudes in the hot-tub was in fact not a dude, and was her clueless younger sister who was missing literally every signal being shown to her. That was not, of course, the issue at hand.

The issue at hand was the fact that Darcy had been bitching about her sister, _as if anyone could have any objections to Jane, she was literally the very definition of unobjectionable_ , and that he had left her a voicemail which, in her new state of not being inclined to believe him a good person, could be interpreted as rather offensive. After he said hello to Jane, and Bingley led her inside, Elizabeth found herself standing at the foot of a rather grand entrance stairwell, glaring up at Darcy. That, at least, was a familiar situation for the both of them.

“Ms Bennet.”

“Mr Darcy.”

He paused for a moment. “You didn’t refer to me as minister,” he noted, somewhat dumbly.

“That’s because at the moment you’re not the minister. You’re some dickhead dressed head to toe in Hugo Boss who left me a very incriminating voicemail message at about 4 last night.” Elizabeth contemplated bringing up the other issue, but she noted that Fitzwilliam had stopped venting to her about Darcy the moment he saw her at that brunch at Caroline’s and as such probably hadn’t known to whom he was actually speaking previously, and so she didn’t want to betray that particular confidence.

“So you listened to that.”

“I very much listened to that.”

“My deepest apologies,” he began.

“Save it,” said Elizabeth. “Is Caroline here?”

“Yes.”

They stared at each other for about fifteen seconds, before Elizabeth snapped, “Fucking where?”

“The ballroom, overseeing everything.”

“Would you mind terribly telling me where the fuck that is, so that we can stop standing here with our dicks out?”

Luckily for the both of them, he obliged. It was the work of about ten minutes conversation to discern that everything was in hand for the ceremony the next day, and when a lull in the conversation presented itself, Elizabeth sought an external opinion regarding Fitzwilliam’s designs on her sister. Or at least she would have, if not for the fact that just as she was about to ask, she was interrupted by the entrance of Lord Tristan Fitzwilliam, who flopped into a vacant chair, put his feet up on another chair, and said, apropos of nothing, “Elizabeth, were you aware of the fact that your delight of a younger sister is currently holed up in the stables with my brother, hopefully, but probably not, up to no good?”

Elizabeth and Caroline also pulled up chairs. “I was literally about to ask about that,” Elizabeth admitted, “what is going on with them?”

“As far as I’m aware,” Lord Tristan said, examining his nails in an uninterested manner, “he would like to engage in various heterosexual pursuits with your sister.”

“That’s old news,” Elizabeth said. “I want to hear about his progress on that front.”

“Lol what fucking progress?” Caroline snorted.

“Well that answers that question.”

“Fret not, my pretties,” Lord Tristan enthused, “there’s nothing like a wedding for galvanising the heteros.”

“Speaking of galvanising the heteros, I keep forgetting to pass on the regards of a friend of mine who apparently knew you at university,” Elizabeth said with a coy smile.

“Oh yes?” Lord Tristan enquired.

“Do you remember Charlotte Lucas? From when you were on exchange?”

Lord Tristan let out a hoot of laughter. “Charlotte! Fuck me gently with a chainsaw, I remember her! What is she up to these days?”

“She’s a photographer. Mainly fashion. Occasionally sports when she’s feeling bored.”

“Is this the mysterious Charlotte from your one foray into heterosexual relations?” Caroline asked.

“The very same,” Lord Tristan answered.

“Her father and my father are ancient friends. The whole family are coming to the wedding.”

“Oh how marvellous!” Lord Tristan enthused.

Caroline evidently had a number of questions for Lord Tristan, and Elizabeth had a question or two for Fitzwilliam, not to mention some good-natured prodding of Mary in which to engage, and so she made her apologies, and asked for directions to the stables.

Somewhere along the way she got lost, as she found herself out the front of the house, deciding that she’d just walk the perimeter until he heard or smelled horses. It was a fifteen minute walk before she heard the first whinny carried on a puff of breeze. It was another ten minutes until she found the building. Therein she had a problem. Stables were full of horses. Elizabeth wasn’t good with horses. Elizabeth didn’t like horses. Or slightly more to the point, horses didn’t like her. As a rational woman, she was aware that horses, as flight animals, were not the sort of creatures who could smell fear and capitalise on it. That didn’t change the fact that the moment she was within sighting distance of a horse, it tended to get all malevolent on her.

Before she had to decide whether she would galvanise herself and go in, or just stand awkwardly outside until they emerged, she received a text message, and heard Mary’s phone beeping. Elizabeth saw Kitty’s message in the group chat she shared with her sisters saying that she, Lydia, and their parents, were arriving.

She also heard Mary seeing it. “Fucking finally, I can actually get some practice in. The family have just arrived with my pipes. Is there a conveniently placed moor somewhere nearby where I can play the bagpipes in a suitably brooding setting, Evie?”

“Mary,” Elizabeth called, feeling like a bit of an idiot, “I’ve been looking for you.”

“No fucking shit,” Mary commented, striding past her as she fixed her lipstick (black, because of course she was going to try to antagonise their mother).

Fitzwilliam followed a few steps behind her. “A word, Evie, if I could?”

“Elizabeth. What can I do for you.”

“Just so that we’re on the same page, that friend of Darcy’s who was marrying some chick he’d barely met, and Darcy thought it was a terrible idea and he kept complaining about the whole situation…”

“Yeah.” He looked considerably guilty.

“I just wanted to be sure that I was being furious with him for the correct reason. Because I think my tone with him earlier was perhaps a bit sharp for just that voicemail he left.”

Fitzwilliam cleared his throat uncomfortably.

“Well that answers that question,” Elizabeth muttered.

“How bad was that voicemail?” Fitzwilliam asked.

Elizabeth dialled voicemail and put her phone on speaker.

“Well that was certainly something,” Fitzwilliam said after a lengthy pause once the message cut out.

“And while we’re on the topic of ‘something’,” Elizabeth said, crossing her arms, “what the fuck is going on between you and Mary?”

“What are you--” he was silenced by Elizabeth’s look of ‘bitch, please’.

“I am well aware of your feelings for my sister, and I think that instead of just dancing around the issue and flirting with her, you should actually ask her out.”

Fitzwilliam ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “I’m a bit worried that Mary doesn’t really like me like that. I think she thinks of me as just a friend.”

“Well that can be changed pretty easily.”

“I also think that she might not be interested in me in a romantic sense. Not once has she indicated anything to the contrary.”

Elizabeth laughed. “Were you messaging her while she was on the train this afternoon?”

“Yes, why?”

“Because she kept looking at her phone and then smiling.”

Fitzwilliam looked at her oddly. “Mary smiles all the time.”

“Mary doesn’t smile.” Elizabeth corrected. “Mary has a resting bitch-face of which I am perpetually jealous. She can scare small children just by making eye contact. Mary doesn’t look down at her phone, and then smile slightly. It looked adorable, and Mary is not, as a rule, anything even remotely adjacent to adorable.”

Fitzwilliam looked as if he were about to say something and then fell silent, looking thoughtful. They remained in silence as they walked back towards the house. Elizabeth couldn’t help but think that maybe she was pushing the Mary angle just so that she could have Darcy surrounded by friends who had “settled” for “young women of middling breeding”. She was sure, however, that she didn’t give a shit.

 

The wedding was fairly uneventful, discounting the vague background level of familial chaos. Elizabeth came to learn that the estate was run by Darcy’s younger sister Georgiana, and was more or less just a function venue, that being one of the only ways to support having a massive country manor as the ancestral home. She also came to learn that Georgiana was the one who had initially suggested that Darcy get into politics. Or at least that that was the party line. Because no respectable political leader in post-Brexit Britain could possibly get away with saying that they got into politics because it interested them if they wanted to get anywhere near the leadership. It all needed to seem terribly altruistic. Darcy had become far too good at climbing the greasy totem pole far too quickly for his entry into politics to have been anything but meticulously planned.

He and his perfectly tailored, clearly not off the rack, disgustingly flattering tuxedo weren’t fooling anyone.

The wedding was fairly uneventful but for when, at the reception, as Jane and Bingley’s first dance was ending, and other couples were joining them on the dance floor, Darcy appeared, offered his hand, and requested a dance of her. In full view of everyone. Which meant that Elizabeth basically had to accept. Of course it didn’t mean that she had to be a good sport about it.

“Have you made your peace with the fact that Charles has settled for some young woman of middling breeding?” she asked almost the moment his hand reached her waist.

To his credit, Darcy only looked horrified for a moment before his face went ‘media bland’. “So you weren’t just angry about the voicemail.”

“I thought the voicemail was bloody hilarious until I realised that you’d been badmouthing my sister. And honestly, how upper-class Tory can you get? Middling breeding, what the fuck?”

“How the fuck was I supposed to know that she was your sister? The two of you don’t exactly look alike, and you don’t have a particularly rare surname. Not to mention the fact that you strike me as the sort of child who murdered any older siblings because you didn’t like the competition.”

“Well fuck you very much to begin with, and to conclude, what the fuck, who objects to a person merely on the grounds of their pedigree?  Like what the actual fuck?”

“Well clearly I never meant for anyone to actually hear about it.”

“You’re a fucking politician. Literally everything you say is recorded in some way or another for eventual leaking at an inopportune date. If you think that your offices aren’t bugged by the Home Office you’re out of your fucking mind. And I hope you don’t think that your emails are even remotely private. But also, who on earth even thinks stuff like that these days. This isn’t the fucking Regency, where you needed to perpetuate the social hierarchy through the marriage of some eligible bint who was likely to foal quickly and easily.” Elizabeth thanked an adolescence spent reading fantasy novels set in a quasi-feudal European setting for that delightful turn of phrase.

“I’m back on your shit list, aren’t I?” Darcy enquired, defeated.

“You were never truly off it,” Elizabeth countered, focussing on her loathing of the man in front of her, and definitely not aware of the feeling of him holding her as they spun about the dancefloor of his ballroom, the strength clearly evident in his bearing, or the fact that he was able to lead very convincingly. None of that even crossed her mind once.

 

When the reception was over, all the guests had left, and Jane and Bingley had retired to their room in advance of their departure on their honeymoon the next day, Elizabeth found Charlotte on a balcony, drinking with Lord Tristan and reminiscing about the Good Old Days. “Lord Tristan, I thought that you might be intrigued to hear that I last saw your brother and my sister walking off in the direction of the guest quarters, very much arm in arm.”

“My darling, I am delighted to hear that. Indeed I must tell Caroline the good news. Charlie, it’s been a delight. We simply must keep in touch.” He kissed her on the cheek. “Elizabeth, a pleasure as always.”

“Likewise,” Elizabeth said, also being kissed on the cheek. When he was gone, she turned to Charlotte. “I need to get very drunk and complain about many things.”

“Bitch, I have you covered,” Charlotte said, pulling two bottles of wine from under her chair, and handing one to Elizabeth.

Elizabeth took it, opened it, and took a swig. “Also, Charlie?”

Charlotte opened her bottle, and drank also. “I went through a bit of a butch phase. During that time, I went by Charlie.”

“You had your one and only foray into heterosexuality in the midst of your butch phase?”

Charlotte shrugged. “One of us had to be the butch and it sure as shit wasn’t going to be Tris.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that I kept building up Chapter 10 as some big action chapter, and I wish there had been more. I just hit some serious blank. If I'm inspired later on as I gradually remember how to write, I may edit this chapter. If that ends up happening, I'll post that on my writing tumblr as well as flagging it in the next chapter I update just to be sure that you excellent humans are aware.
> 
> The fact that there isn't much description of the actual wedding is prompted by two reasons. Firstly, because the next chapter of 'An Evening at the Opera' is going to go into a hell of a lot more detail; and secondly, because Elizabeth is so filled with righteous fury at Darcy that she literally cannot focus on anything else. She looks through the photos of Jane's wedding later on and is like ?I remember none of this?.


	11. In which there are political machinations, and mixed feelings begin to emerge.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy might be clawing his way off the shit-list. Elizabeth is getting way too invested in Mary's love life in a desperate attempt to ignore her own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter doesn't even remotely pass the Bechdel test. I don't care. 
> 
> Also, apologies for the delay with updates. Things have been hectic. Check out my tumblr for a shitload of headcanons about characters. Send me asks. My ego needs constant stroking.

Elizabeth Bennet’s recollection of the previous night was a bit hazy from the point where she and Charlotte started drinking. She had clearly made it back to the room that she was sharing with Mary, as that was where she was, and she had at some point changed into pyjamas, but that was about all she could be sure of. She also had a vague recollection of Evelyn Fitzwilliam being somehow tangentially connected to it, but wasn’t entirely sure how.

She also noted that (if the empty bottle of water next to her was anything to go by) someone had forced her to drink about a litre of water before she went to sleep. Given that Mary was not only there, but also the only person she knew who carried around a litre of water in their handbag as a matter of course, odds were it was Mary. Mary who was currently poking her awake and looking not entirely impressed.

“What’s the time?” Elizabeth groaned.

“Quarter to seven,” Mary replied, looking incredibly unimpressed by that fact.

“Why the fuck are you waking me up at a quarter to seven on a Sunday?”

“Because I was woken up at twenty to seven on a Sunday by your work colleague, who thought it might be pertinent to tell you that there’s a leadership contest in the offing.”

Elizabeth sat bolt upright, all traces of sleepiness scrubbed from her system. Mary handed her an oversized cardigan and pointed in the direction of the door. As decently attired as she could ever expect to be given the circumstances, she opened it and stepped through.

On the other side was, as Mary had put it, ‘her work colleague’. Fitzwilliam Darcy, MP, was both very awake, and clad in actual clothing (rather than pyjamas and a cardigan), and seemed to infinitesimally quirk an eyebrow at her appearance. Which surprised Elizabeth given quite how deep he was on her shit-list, a fact of which he was exceedingly aware. “I’m listening,” she said, crossing her arms and pulling the cardigan closer around her body.

“There have been rumblings--”

“I am well aware of the rumblings, Minister. If you wouldn’t mind getting to the point?”

“The contest is going to be announced tomorrow. Richard will--”

“Richard?” Elizabeth interrupted. “The Foreign Secretary?”

“There’s only one Richard in the cabinet,” Darcy pointed out.

“I’m well aware of that, thank you. My surprise was more related to the fact that I was unaware of those rumblings.”

“Really?” Darcy looked surprised. “Which rumblings had you heard?”

“The Home Sec.”

Darcy chuckled. “Oh yes. That. Richard and Jeremy had a closed door chat, the end result of which was that if he kept making noise, he’d get the deputy job if and when things came to pass, especially given the fact that Johnson’s retirement is coming in the very near future. I’ll have to tell them that the ruse worked.”

“What I don’t understand is why? You’re not suffering in the opinion polls, and if we’ve learned nothing else from Australia, it’s that constant PM switching isn’t great for the public’s confidence in the institution of government. And the Australians weren’t dealing with the aftermath of Brexit.”

“The PM’s a good sort, terribly sound and all that, but he won’t win us the next election. And if whoever replaces him is to have any chance of winning us the election, they need time to consolidate.”

“And what of yourself?” Elizabeth asked.

“What of myself?”

“Oh don’t play dumb. What of your ambitions in that direction? Because I know that you have them. You’re too intelligent not to.”

Darcy shrugged and stopped looking innocent. “I’ve been in cabinet less than a year. I was a backbencher for less than a year before that. It’s not my time.”

“But if one’s party colleagues were to press one to make a bid, for the good of the party?” Elizabeth insinuated.

“Well naturally, one would take up the mantle for the good of the party and of the nation were that the case,” Darcy said, looking off into the distance in a patrician manner, right hand slowly moving to rest upon his heart.

Elizabeth had to work to keep a straight face. It was a pity that he was such a deeply unpleasant person personally, because professionally, he was rather fun. “Well thanks for the heads up. I’ll see what I can do with that. I assume you have the votes?”

“Of course. I wouldn’t be supporting their nonsense if it meant running the risk of being absolutely shafted in the inevitable reshuffle which would follow.”

“And in the reshuffle which will follow this?”

“I become the Foreign Sec.”

“You’re not a bit young for that?” Elizabeth wondered aloud.

“We’re the Tories. The youth vote isn’t exactly ours by default. Concessions are being made in order to pander to the electorate,” he commented with admirable self-awareness.

“But why is it all so sudden? Is something happening that I’m not aware of?” The timing seemed suspicious.

Darcy smiled indulgently. “This has been in the offing for weeks. I’m giving you a day’s lead up as a courtesy. Otherwise you’d have been blindsided by it tomorrow like everyone else.”

“Your magnanimity is noted,” Elizabeth said with a brisk nod. “If you’ll excuse me, I have a number of calls to make.”

Darcy nodded in reply, spun on his heel and walked away. Elizabeth swept back into the room, grabbed her phone, and started making notes on it. “How’s the hand, Mary?” she asked as she typed.

“Pretty good, considering. Was your conversation fruitful?” Mary enquired.

“Terribly.”

“He’s taller than I expected,” Mary commented. “And there is no family resemblance between him and Evie.”

Elizabeth shrugged. “There’s no family resemblance between Janey and the rest of us either.” Mary conceded the point, and set to lacing up her boots. “So what went on with you and Evelyn last night? I don’t recall the two of you returning to the reception,” Elizabeth continued.

Elizabeth could have sworn that Mary choked slightly at that. “He patched me up, and then showed me the inevitable spooky portrait gallery.” She was busily concentrating on her shoes, her untied hair covering most of her face.

Elizabeth concluded that that was probably a conversation to be taken up with the other party in that interaction. She also saw that Mary was packed and ready to leave. “I realise that I never asked, how are you getting back to London?”

“One of my cubicle buddies is driving back from Edinburgh this morning. He’s making a detour to pick me up.”

“Have I met him?” Elizabeth asked, wondering idly if any of Mary’s university acquaintances weren’t men.

“You haven’t met any of my university friends,” was Mary’s reply.

“I met Henry Crawford at Jane’s engagement party,” Elizabeth countered with a grin. She had been sitting on that little tidbit of information for weeks, waiting for the opportune moment to drop it.

“Oh god. How did that go?” Mary groaned.

“Perfectly charming lad. Honestly, I wish I had the self-possession and unassailable belief in my own self-worth of a white boy.”

“His confidence levels are admirable.” Mary looked resigned.

“He’s also a lot more attractive in person,” Elizabeth probed.

“Oh my god, Elizabeth, just because we’ve been hate-flirting for years doesn’t mean that there’s anything happening. He’s a smug douchebag who flirts with me whenever he’s bored and I’m around, which tends to be whenever we’re in the same room. It’s very much not a thing.”

“As opposed to all of the flirting between you and Evelyn?”

“Christ on a bicycle, Lizzie, I get that Jane just got married and all, but not every interaction between a man and a woman is a step along the path to marriage. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go pat the cats in the stables.” Mary stood and swept from the room. Elizabeth finished typing and selected the speed dial for Edward Gardiner.

“Yes?”

“Leadership contest. Tomorrow.”

“WHAT?”

“Foreign Sec.”

“ _WHAT?_ ”

“They have the numbers.”

“How do you know this?” he asked in a deathly whisper.

“The Minister for Youth and Unemployment.”

There was a moment or two of garbled swearing as (Elizabeth could guess having seen it happen) he held his phone in a clenched fist as he started yelling, and only later remembered that he should perhaps end the call.

By then well and truly awake, Elizabeth had a couple of hours before she and Charlotte were to meet for brunch, and she spent some of those couple of hours going back to sleep. She wasn’t like Mary, fresh-faced and young, able to just wake up after an evening of partying and gambol off to look at some cats.

Charlotte had done some googling, and had found a delightful café in the equally delightful village which was located not five miles from the house. It was a lovely day, so Elizabeth decided to walk. She was an excellent walker, but living in London limited her walking opportunities. The countryside through which she walked was almost nauseatingly picturesque. There were small copses of trees, babbling brooks, and she swore that she saw the odd rabbit frolicking about.

After a very enjoyable hour and a half of walking, she reached the agreed location, and learned the true meaning of the saying ‘I came out here to have a good time and I’m honestly feeling so attacked right now’. She sat down across from Charlotte, and looked across at her friend, who was looking at her in a very disappointed manner.

“What?”

“You didn’t tell me that you had a massive boner for your little work frenemy.”

“Excuse me?”

Charlotte crossed her arms and looked even more disappointed. “The two of you were eyefucking SO HARD literally all of last night.”

“We were what now?”

“Did I fucking stutter, Elizabeth?” Charlotte pulled out her phone and started scrolling through photographs she had taken.

“What the shit, Charlotte?” Elizabeth asked, continuing to scroll, and making a mental note to ask Charlotte to send her some of the photos later, when she was in a less ridiculous mood. “These are photos of us dancing. One must, necessarily, look at one’s partner when dancing.”

Charlotte snorted. “Bitch, you guys were eyefucking. Now I completely understand that he is the absolute scum of the earth and you hate the very fibre of his being for whatever reasons, but like… please be aware that your traitor body is definitely telling you yes regardless of what your mind might be decreeing.”

Elizabeth decided to remove the middleman and sent herself some of the photos while they ordered. Charlotte was annoyingly good at getting excellent photographs out of a mobile phone camera.

“Why do you hate him quite so much?” Charlotte asked when Elizabeth returned her phone. “And don’t give me any of that Tory scum nonsense. I know that you’re too good at your job to actually care about that nonsense.”

“Are you ready for me to carpet bomb you with truth?”

Charlotte shifted in her seat. “My darling, I am always ready to be carpet-bombed with truth.”

“Remember how I mentioned that Fitzwilliam was dealing with listening to Darcy bitch about one of his mates getting married to some chick he’d just met? Thought that he was settling etc.?”

“I have vague recollections of that,” Charlotte admitted, “although I have to admit that these days you spend so much time complaining about the Minister for being a Pain in your Arse so much that I tend to filter most of it out.”

“Tl; dr version,” Elizabeth said, leaning back in her seat and waving an arm in an offhand manner while she spoke, “the friend he was talking about was Bingley.”

“Jane’s Bingley?” Charlotte leaned forward, intrigued.

“The very same.”

“Which means…”

“Oh yes.”

“Christ. I can see why you’re hating on the fucker. I can also see why your clear physical attraction to the man is such an issue for you,” Charlotte said, before adding, “apart from the obvious professional concerns clearly associated with that, because a workplace crush is wildly unprofessional.”

“Ok wow.” Elizabeth was here to have a good time and was feeling mightily attacked right then. “When did I ever actually concede to this idea of a crush. He’s an objectively attractive guy. I concede that. But I am able to appreciate his pleasing aesthetic without wishing for any kind of romantic involvement.”

Charlotte gave her a look which implied that she had no confidence in the truthfulness of that statement.

"Let me guess," Charlotte said with a look of great disdain, "it's not like that?"

"It is indeed not like that," Elizabeth confirmed with a glare she had picked up from Mary. She could tell that she wasn't doing it justice, but then again, nobody could glare like Mary.

Charlotte just raised her eyebrows, and kept them raised more or less throughout their brunch. It was most vexing, and unnecessarily smug.

Elizabeth considered walking back after her brunch, but not only did Charlotte offer to drive her back to Pemberley, her parents having driven up to the Lakes District for their god-daughter's wedding, but she needed to pack her things to be able to catch the train back to London. A train trip which she would take alone because Mary was undoubtedly off being oblivious around some other smitten young man, and Jane was heading off on her honeymoon.

And if she didn't spend an hour and a half walking back, she'd have time to see Jane before she left.

Jane was _very_ smiley when Elizabeth saw her. Elizabeth couldn't help but think of the descriptor 'smug married' from Bridget Jones' Diary. But she couldn't begrudge her sister her happiness. Jane clearly loved Charles, and he clearly loved her. It was nauseatingly adorable.

Charlotte wandered the grounds as Elizabeth packed, and was obliging enough to get her to the station. Elizabeth could easily have asked either of her parents for a lift, but her father drove like a maniac and was likely to ask her what was going on at work, and she couldn't very well tell him that there was a reshuffle in the offing, because the Lords were the absolute worst when it came to gossip, and a pending reshuffle was just about the mintiest freshest gossip in existence. And her mother, while a much safer driver, was busy being paralysed with joy at the fact that her eldest daughter had just married a handsome young doctor. Never mind that her eldest daughter was a doctor in her own right. That was immaterial. Her eldest daughter had married a handsome doctor and that was what mattered. And his sister! So elegant! Her suit so well cut! It was not the uninterrupted monologue that Elizabeth needed while she planned. Especially when at the pace her mother drove on any road less paved than a highway, the eight miles would take close to twenty minutes.

Elizabeth was carrying her bag down the exterior flight of stairs (a wildly unnecessary feature in any house, although excellent for wedding photographs she had to concede) to where Charlotte was leaning against her parents' car, trying to gesture in a simultaneously frantic and subtle manner, when she took a moment to see what Charlotte was gesturing so frantically about.

The first thing she saw was a car which, charitably could be referred to as an 'absolute fucking shit heap'. The next thing she saw was the very attractive mediterranean boy getting out of the driver's seat (Elizabeth knew that that was a wildly inappropriate manner in which to describe a person, but honestly, the boy looked like one of the cast of 300 who didn't even need bodypainting to look ripped, and his eyebrows were far too fierce to be anything other than vaguely ethnic), dialling someone on his phone. Elizabeth took her time walking over to Charlotte and stowing her suitcase in the boot, and was duly rewarded for her timewasting, because anon did Mary appear, carrying her sizeable suitbag with her good hand, her handbag on the elbow of her bad hand, and the bag with her actual clothing and such over her shoulder. She deposited them all in the boot of the shit heap, and then hugged the mediterranean boy rather more tightly than might be expected of two bros chilling in a hot tub five feet apart because they're not gay or whatever the non-homoerotic equivalent was.

Elizabeth glanced around surreptitiously and could have sworn she saw Fitzwilliam through one of the windows, looking down at the reunion scene. Mary got into the death trap, as did the good looking 'cubicle buddy' of hers, some of Mary's less horrific metal was pumped through the speakers, and they drove off.

"What. The actual fuck. Did I just watch?" Charlotte asked, a look of wonderment upon her face.

"Apparently, that's a university chum. One of her cubicle buddies," Elizabeth said as she and Charlotte set off.

"Does she realise that she's kind of super flirty in like all situations, do you think?"

"Oh, I can assure you that she has no fucking clue whatsoever. It's kind of hilarious."

"You're a terrible sister."

"You'd do the same if it were Maria," Elizabeth pointed out.

"I'd do the same if Maria were to express any interest whatsoever in anyone of any gender or lack thereof," Charlotte countered. "I swear, every conversation I have with that girl passes the Bechdel test."

"Oh how boring."

"And in other news, I'd like you to come over for dinner tomorrow night, once you've dealt with whatever horrific political fracas you're clearly mapping a route through while we're having this conversation. Because I expect details."

Elizabeth looked over at Charlotte, who had her eyes on the road, but nonetheless had her eyebrows raised, as if challenging Elizabeth to tell her that that was not indeed the case. Which of course it was. "Is it that obvious?" she asked.

"It is to me, babe."

Elizabeth spent the train ride back to London mapping out a media strategy on her phone in a group chat with Mr Gardiner. Who (and she knew from experience) had not mastered the art of touch typing on a computer (or on a phone for that matter - he wasn't one for both thumbs working in tandem, he was a hold the phone in one hand, type with the index finger of the other hand kind of guy), and so took forever to formulate a response. Because he typed with his index fingers, picking out one letter at a time, like an ancient businessman in the seventies who for whatever reason didn't have a secretary to do his typing for him.

Elizabeth got home to her (and it was now hers, because Mary was not yet her flatmate, and Jane sure as shit wasn't any more) empty apartment, looked in the fridge, found some random leftovers from the hen's night along with half a bottle of red wine, determined which leftovers were still edible and which were for the bin, and sat down to her sad, sad single dinner of refrigerated shiraz and microwaved three day old pizza. After taking a photo of it and sending it to Charlotte with the caption 'This is how I die alone'.

Monday dawned, and Elizabeth rose with a sense of glorious purpose. For once, she had been able to prepare. She wasn't just reacting to some kind of horrific shitshow. She knew exactly what shitshow was coming, and she was ready to make it her bitch. She walked into her office with a wolf-like smile on her face and a malicious spring in her step. She was going to spin like she had never spun before. And then she recieved such a start that she nearly dropped her thermos mug of tea all over herself.

"Who the fuck are you, and what the fuck are you doing in my office." It wasn't a question. It was a threat.

The man seated at one of the chairs facing her desk stood and turned to face her with a smile. Elizabeth started slightly. He was unpleasantly attractive. Fuckboi levels of attractive. That was never a good thing to have in one's office at a quarter to eight in the morning. "Elizabeth Bennet?" he asked.

"Are you asking so that you can serve me with a subpoena?"

"No."

"Yes."

"George Wickham. I'm a freelance journalist. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I think that we need to have a chat about what's about to happen today."

 


	12. In which there is the beginning of a thaw

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elizabeth finds herself increasingly in the presence of Darcy, and increasingly aware of the fact that he's a very good looking chap.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fingers crossed, updates are going to be more frequent from here on in. Thanks for waiting :)

“Interesting,” Elizabeth said, “because I think that you need to get the FUCK OUT OF MY OFFICE and make an appointment like the rest of the gutter press whom I do not scruple to call back.”

Elizabeth’s peevish reaction was evidently not what he was used to. Elizabeth mused that as an attractive white male, he had been conditioned to expect her to be receptive to whatever bullshit he was obviously trying to pull. “I have some information which I think you’ll want to hear,” he said, not moving.

So he had found out about the reshuffle, and was attempting to scratch her back in the hope that one day she would scratch his. Not only was that very much not how the system worked outside of American political dramas, but she didn’t even need the headstart. “Get out, now. Some of us have legitimate work to do. Go write some puff piece about a minor royal or whatever the fuck you do most of the time.”

Elizabeth held the door open and looked at him expectantly. Somewhat confused, he slunk out, and once he was gone, she immediately googled his name, because she had literally never heard of the man before in her life, which meant that he was almost certainly not usually a political reporter. Soon enough, she had her answer - he had been reporting on American politics for some youth-oriented buzz-type website which attempted to make governance ‘hip’ for ‘the kids’. It was, however, still disconcerting that he had known what was going on before even the recipients of the knifing knew.

She stuck her head through the door to see if Mr Gardiner was around (he was not), and figured that she had time for a phone call.

“This is Darcy.”

“Darcy, Elizabeth. You’ve got a leak.”

There was a moment’s pause. “No we don’t.”

“Look, Minister, I just got into my office to find some journalist named George Wickham dropping hints about something that’s happening today. I didn’t engage, so I cannot be certain if he meant your thing or some other thing, but I’m willing to guess it was your thing.”

“Why does that name sound familiar?” Darcy mused, and the sound of typing came from his end of the call. “Oh right. I knew of him at university. Seemed like a bit of a dick.”

“Well he’s a journalist now, so I think it’s safe to say that that continued,” Elizabeth commented. “If you’re confident that you don’t have a leak, then I shall wait with bated breath for whatever other fresh hell is coming today. But if I were you, I’d set wheels in motion sooner rather than later just in case.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, thank you.”

Elizabeth ended the call and then opened up a number of twitter feeds, keeping an eye out for any posts that shouldn’t be there, while waiting for the inevitable BBC tweet that there was a leadership challenge underway. All things considered, it was surprisingly swift and bloodless. The PM had been concerned with the challenge he had thought was coming from the Home Secretary, which meant that the votes he thought he needed to muster were not in fact the votes required. He conceded defeat like a gentleman, in front of a small cadre of reporters from news outlets that Elizabeth had selected. There was a show of unity behind the new leader. It was nothing like the 2015 ousting of Australia’s sitting Prime Minister, an affair so acrimonious that there had been a gelato flavour created in its honour, and generally the  _ ne plus ultra _ of what they were very much not trying to go for over at Westminster. 

This was not, however, the way things would have played out naturally. The moment some backbencher tweeted that there was going to be a party meeting because there had been a leadership challenge (Elizabeth made a note to send some underling to yell at him - one did not just tweet politics willy-nilly), she put her heels back on and made her way over to the party room where MPs were milling about waiting for the whips to show up. Mr Gardiner had learned over the years that it was best to have a threatening presence reminding the major players that there were lines that were not to be crossed, and that any comments to the press, should they feel driven to provide them, should be measured and considerate, and in no way the sort of thing that Boris would have said about Theresa. Nobody wanted to go back to the way things were in  _ those _ days. 

She entered the room to hear the PM asking, in an almost disappointed voice, “Et tu, Darcy?”

Darcy raised his eyebrows as if to say ‘I’m doing what needs to be done’, and left the soon to be ex-PM, walking over to Elizabeth. “What are you doing here?” he asked. “The ballot hasn’t even happened yet.”

“I’m here as a silent threat, to remind everyone to comport themselves like adults.”

“What, you’re worried that Brutus is not, in fact, an honourable man?”

“Heavens no,” Elizabeth laughed. “The Brutuses are not my concern, for Brutus is an honourable man. I’m more worried that Julius won’t take twenty-three stab wounds like a champ.”

“In this case, I can say with certainty that Julius is a terribly sound chap.”

“There’s ‘sound’, and then there’s ‘he was just stabbed in the back twenty-three times by his fellow senators’.” Darcy did not look guilty in the slightest as she continued, for indeed was Brutus an honourable man. “Not to mention the fact that one of the backbenchers already tweeted that a challenge was underway, so the cat’s rather out of the bag as it were. If I’m here glaring at people, they’re less likely to tweet things, and that makes my job significantly easier in the long run.” Darcy was looking at her in an odd manner as she surveyed the room sternly as yet more MPs filed in. “It’s probably not good for your image to be seen to be too chummy with the media relations demons,” Elizabeth pointed out. “If you want to be respected by your peers as the next Foreign Sec, you probably shouldn’t be chatting with some chit from the civil service.” She smiled insipidly at him, before catching sight of the MP who had posted the first tweet and glaring daggers in his direction.

“That assumes that I expect my peers to do anything other than resent me for being some young hotshot who got one of the top cabinet posts after the political equivalent of five minutes in the Commons. They’re going to dislike me regardless, and are you really never going to let that comment go? It was not my finest moment, and I apologise once again most sincerely for any offence it caused,” Darcy said in a put-upon manner.

“There was no offence, Darcy, it was bloody hilarious. I just keep bringing it up because it makes you uncomfortable, and a large part of my job is making cabinet ministers uncomfortable. Since you’ve become nicely adept at avoiding media gaffes, I have to make do.”

Darcy looked to be struggling to look serious, but he did take her advice and returned to the throng of his colleagues. Unbidden, she was hit with the realisation that the day before had been the first time she had ever seen him out of a suit. He had been wearing jeans and a sweater (with seemingly no shirt underneath the sweater - but that was an entirely irrelevant detail. It wasn’t like she had been able to see more of his neck than usual, and the lines of his shoulders without the encumbrance of a suit blocking her view and changing the shape) when he had come to give her warning of the impending contest. The fact that at the time she had been too tired and hung over to process anything other than the most pressing issues was no longer the case, and she was hit with the unwelcome fact that Darcy was even more attractive out of a suit. This was very problematic, and exactly the sort of thing to avoid. She glared with extra vehemence at that bloody backbencher who had let the cat out of the bag. Maybe she’d yell at him herself.

The rest of her week was uneventful, both compared to Monday’s events (a leadership challenge was a rare event) and compared to the usual chaos and farce. Everyone seemed to be on extra-good behaviour in case the new PM decided to keep reshuffling his cabinet, or they were too busy trying to come to grips with their new portfolios that they didn’t have time to get into trouble. This was with the exception of Darcy who had had Elizabeth CCed into every calendar reminder in his schedule. This was in addition to his usual multiple daily emails with scheduling updates, which he had at least now started sprinkling more liberally with interesting articles or studies or GIFs of cats. 

There was some back-and-forth starting to emerge in their email correspondence, and it was also becoming evident that Darcy had rather a dry sense of humour which Elizabeth quite enjoyed. This was, however, nothing more than vague workplace acquaintances sharing a joke or two via the official email server. Elizabeth’s own sense of professionalism meant that she wouldn’t allow it to go any further than that, even if Darcy had expressed any such interest, which he had not.

The enjoyable back-and-forth did not, however, extend to the calendar updates. Those were just annoying, because in the unending wisdom of some asshole in IT, everyone was on Outlook, and reminders in Outlook were horrifically insistent little shits. By friday afternoon, as most people were heading home, and most of the MPs were returning to their electorates for the weekend, Elizabeth received yet another reminder for the fifth time, and pressed dismiss yet again, only for it to reappear, and so annoyed was she that she was willing to concede defeat and go over there and ask him to stop. Because it appeared that the Foreign Secretary went to a significantly larger number of meetings than the Minister for Youth and Unemployment.

She arrived at the anteroom to his office, which was strewn with boxes as it was prepared for the move to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, as was befitting. Fitzwilliam looked up from the Red Boxes he was sorting through, saw her expression, and sighed. “What has he done now?” he asked, walking over and kissing her on the cheek. 

“Guess,” Elizabeth offered.

Fitzwilliam took a deep breath, and called in the direction of the door to the Minister’s office, “Fitz, did you start CCing Lizzie in all of your calendar reminders?” he asked in a weary tone.

There was a moment of silence before the door opened, and Darcy appeared sans jacket in just waistcoat and shirtsleeves, arms crossed as he leaned against the doorframe. “Why on earth would you think that?” he asked altogether too innocently. “Elizabeth, hello. What an unexpected surprise.”

Fitzwilliam pinched the bridge of his nose for a moment before looking at Darcy with disappointment tinged with significant exasperation. “Lizzie, if you could refrain from actually killing him, that would be great. If you can’t, I totally understand, but you’re on your own with the body.” Grabbing his jacket from a hanger on a coat-stand as he made his way out, he added, “I’ll be back in a bit to hose the blood off the tiles.”

“Thanks, Evie,” Elizabeth said brightly as he made a disgust and closed the door behind him.

“Were the calendar updates too much?” Darcy asked after offering Elizabeth a seat and receiving a glare in return.

“What the fuck do you think?” Elizabeth asked, trying to maintain her ire, but instead dissolving into giggles because she could see Darcy struggling to keep a straight face, and she had to admit that the situation was a bit ridiculous. 

“Honestly, I’m shocked you made it through four days before you snapped,” Darcy admitted. “After a day and a half I was calling up the various assistants who were putting things into calendars and asking them to just send me a text-based email with the details. To literally no avail.”

“I know,” Elizabeth countered, “I’ve been receiving all of them, remember?”

Darcy tried to suppress a burst of laughter and ended up snorting, which had Elizabeth laughing again. “I’m sorry,” he said finally. “I’ll stop the auto-forwarding.”

“If you could,” Elizabeth said with a weak smile. “When’s the move to the FCO?”

Darcy shrugged expressively. “I’ve been told that everything I want moved should be boxed up by today. Whether it will be moved any time soon, who knows. I’m going to miss our little chats,” he said after a moment’s pause. 

“I’m sure you will,” Elizabeth replied, clearly calling bullshit. “And don’t worry. If you do anything monumentally stupid enough, you’re literally five minutes away.”

“I don’t think I’m likely to…” 

“They never do,” Elizabeth interrupted. “Now where’s Evie gone to? I am of a mind to try to push either him or my sister into talking about their feelings. I’m honestly not fussed as to which so long as something happens.”

“I’ll have him give you a call when he returns from wherever he goes when he feels the need to primally scream away his frustration with me being a little shit,” Darcy said with a hint of a smile which revealed a dimple. That was a new and unfair development.

“That would be most appreciated. Have a lovely weekend,” Elizabeth said, heading back to her office, and receiving a phone call when she was halfway back. “Evie, hello!”

“Lizzie, Fitz said that you wanted to chat?”

“Ah yes. What are you doing on Saturday afternoon?”

“Nothing….” Fitzwilliam sounded suspicious. This was, perhaps, a smart reaction.

“Excellent! You’re coming with me to watch Mary play rugby. You two can chat afterwards. I’ll text you the details. Good talk. Bye now.” She ended the call before he could try to protest, and went home, feeling terribly virtuous. She felt that she had done the right thing telling him to leave off Mary until she was done with university (for good - even Mary was unlikely to feel the need to go double doctorate), and now that she  _ was _ done, there was no reason for the two of them to keep pretending that they didn’t have feelings for each other. 

Not to mention the fact that Mary would be furious that her decade of trying to convince their mother that she was going to die alone, surrounded by cats, was going to be a decade wasted the moment their mother found out. Elizabeth wished she could say that the motivation of annoying her sister was less prominent than the altruism, but that was very much not the case.

Her matchmaking complete, Elizabeth spent her last weekend without a flatmate (for Mary was to move in on the next friday) watching trash on Netflix with Charlotte, as Charlotte made endless ridiculous insinuations about her and Darcy. He was, she admitted, annoyingly attractive. He was also, however, entirely off-limits. Monday passed without incident (rare, because usually the MPs managed to save up an entire weekend’s idiocy and then release it in a burst when they returned), and Tuesday was relatively straightforward because she had Mary to set up her laptop for her. It also came with the delicious knowledge, obtained that morning, that Fitzwilliam was going to have a ‘chat’ with Mary.

When she received no news from either party for a couple of hours, she checked the latest schedule which Darcy had sent her, saw that he was bound to be back from a Cabinet meeting by then, and called him.

“Fitzwilliam Darcy here.”

“Elizabeth Bennet.”

“Ms Bennet, hello. To what do I owe this unexpected contact?”

“It’s a slow day, and I sent Mary off to talk to Evie literally hours ago, and I have had no news.”

Darcy cleared his throat uncomfortably. “It apparently did not go well,” he said, his voice quiet.

“Oh god. I didn’t think she’d freak out if she was no longer under the stress of study.”

“Evidently you thought wrong,” Darcy pointed out. “I assured E that she merely needed some time to deal with the additional information with which he furnished her this afternoon, and I would really like some assurance that that was in fact the truth.”

“Look, Mary likes him, she had just convinced herself that he just saw them as friends, and she doesn’t do well with change. It’ll be fine.” Darcy sighed. “Any news on when they’re taking you to the FCO?”

He chuckled darkly. “What do you think?”

“Look, if Mary hasn’t sorted her shit out by Friday and put us all out of our misery, I’ll have a word with her. She’s moving in then, so she won’t be able to escape the questioning.”

“You’re sounding almost concerningly gleeful,” Darcy noted.

“You never aggressively interrogated your sister about her relationships, showing a level of interest which makes her seriously uncomfortable?” Elizabeth asked.

“No,” Darcy said flatly, as if he didn’t understand the premise of the question.

“Well then you’re a better man than I,” Elizabeth conceded, “because I have been waiting literally my entire life for an opportunity to do this to her.” There was a silence, which she was willing call slightly stunned, on the other end of the call. “Bye, Darcy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The reference to AusPol in the chapter was in relation to the 2015 Liberal Party leadership spill (#LibSpill), wherein the sitting PM, Tony Abbott (a generally shit human), was ousted by his good friend/occasional Judas, Malcolm Turnbull (a less shit, but still shit human; then Abbott’s Communications minister), with Julie Bishop (J Bish - the most badass Foreign Minister we’ve had in a while; she once [won a staring match against a garden gnome](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7n2s6m-HbE)) staying on as Deputy. A popular Sydney gelato brand (Gelato Messina - they have since expanded to other capital cities BUT APPARENTLY NOT YET CANBERRA WHERE AM I GOING TO GET DECENT GELATO NEXT YEAR) known for its occasionally topical limited edition flavours, [decided to immortalise the acrimonious party reshuffle](https://www.facebook.com/gelatomessina/photos/a.10154195505730545.1073741827.232113440544/10156003598615545/) with a flavour called “Malcolm’s Malted Milk” (because Malcolm isn’t going to be the one crying over this spilled milk). This is actually a pretty solid indication of the general level of farce that is associated with Australian politics.


	13. In which our Heroine has a bit of fun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trade negotiations, the jointing of chickens, and passive-aggressive drinking of tea. 
> 
> Strap in for a wild ride.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it appears that it is possible to produce chapters by sheer force of will. Who knew.

The arrival of a trade delegation from New Zealand would usually be the marker of a very tough week for Elizabeth. A country whose main exports were some of the few things that the UK actually produced, justifying things like tarriff reduction was significantly more difficult when it was one of the few occasions when globalisation really was bad for British farmers and the like. Unfortunately for them, in order to get access to cheap antipodean dairy products, they had to also take cheap wool, meat, and assorted other sheep-related products. Spinning that in a manner which made it palatable to the public was not ordinarily an easy thing.

Of course, New Zealand’s Minister for Primary Industries wasn’t usually accompanied by an aide who was a six and a half foot tall Maori guy who had done body double work on Game of Thrones, and who enjoyed going for morning runs with one of his mates, a public servant with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, who knew him from an after-work mixed netball league, a former model, neither of them wearing shirts when they did. She didn’t even need to try to distract the news media. They did it themselves. And so on a Friday, the first day of talks, when usually she would have been at work basically all night putting out fires for the weekend, only for them to spring back up on monday, she was able to leave on time (she could have left early, but that smacked of hubris, and that was never a good idea).

She returned home to find the kitchen occupied by Mary, Mary’s attractive uni friend, a woman in her early to mid-twenties who Elizabeth had never seen before in her life, and Charlotte Lucas. “Lizzie!” Mary said when she appeared, “you’re just in time.”

Elizabeth sat at the empty place next to Charlotte, with some confusion. “Was there a longstanding plan that I completely forgot about?” she asked as Mary pulled something out of the oven.

“Cynth and Nik helped me move my stuff, so I invited them to stay for dinner, and I didn’t want you to be outnumbered by youth, so I invited Charlotte on your behalf.” 

“You might have mentioned that Fitzwilliam minor finally got his shit together and spoke of feelings to Mary, and that the two of them are now officially in ‘a relationship’,” Charlotte said, voice heavy with accusation.

“WHAT?!?” Elizabeth squawked, not even caring about how undignified it was. She had heard nothing of this. Surely someone would have told her when things had been sorted out. Not Mary, who was never one for talking about feelings, but someone at least.

“Huh,” Charlotte expleted. “Mary said that you probably just didn’t know, but I just didn’t believe her.”

“WHY DID YOU NOT TELL ME THIS IMMEDIATELY?” Elizabeth asked, still not capable of normal speech.

“It didn’t seem relevant?” Mary offered.

“You underestimate your sister’s level of interest in your love life, Mary,” Charlotte said with a snort. Elizabeth chose not to comment on her best friend’s sudden transition to Judas.

“WERE YOU EVER GOING TO LET ME IN ON THAT LITTLE DETAIL??”

Mary shrugged. “I’m sure you would have found out eventually. I haven’t been keeping it secret, I’ve just been busy the past few days, and I didn’t see you.”

“You couldn’t have shot me an email or something?” Elizabeth was marginally less outraged, but not by much.

“Oh yes, Lizzie, because I really would have sat down to write ‘Hi Lizzie, just wanted to let you know that Evie and I are now engaging in lots of face smushing in our spare time in addition to our usual tortured sexual tension, have a nice day, Mary’?”

Mary had a point. That was very much not the sort of email she would sit down to write. Elizabeth changed the subject to something less vexing. “I’m Lizzie, Mary’s immediately older sister,” she offered to Mary’s friends, who had been following the conversation up to that point with some interest.

“Oh, shit. Totally forgot to do introductions. Lizzie, this is Nik, who was one of my cubicle buddies,” Elizabeth had heard of him, “and Cynth,” Cynthia had answered Mary’s phone on a number of occasions when Mary’s hands were busy, so they were vaguely acquainted already, “who’s one of the girls from the old flat.” Hands were shaken, and Mary deposited a baking dish with a dismembered chicken and various vegetables on the table. Elizabeth looked from the chicken to Mary and back. “Did you try jointing the chicken with your bare hands again?” she asked in a defeated tone. Mary insisted that a chicken could be jointed without cutting through bone. She was yet to fully succeed without at least slightly mutilating the bird. Or traumatising everyone who saw her do it.

“Indeed she did,” confirmed Charlotte. “It’s the first time I’ve seen it in person. Your description was correct. Bloody horrific.”

Mary took her seat and rolled her eyes. “You’re all boring,” she announced, indicating that people should serve themselves. Once they were all eating, Elizabeth, in a very uncharitable move, pressed for details about her sister’s new relationship. 

“So Mary, tell me more about this new thing with you and Evie? I simply must have details! The last I heard, he had bared his soul to you, and then you just blanked him.”

“Look, Lizzie, his little announcement came as quite a surprise,” Mary began testily, “and I did not have the liberty of having time to ponder his revelations at that moment.”

“I can’t imagine why it was such a surprise,” Elizabeth countered, “I kept dropping heavy hints.”

“And I told you that repeatedly without even bothering with the subtlety of hints,” Nikandros pointed out as if he had pointed that out repeatedly.

“ _ Anyway _ ,” Mary continued, ignoring them both, “I had things I needed to do that evening, and then when I was at leisure to think on things, I had an in-depth and fruitful discussion with an old friend which convinced me that I should stop being timid, and go for it, given that I liked the chap.”

Nikandros looked like he was about to have a seizure. This was an interesting reaction. “Why do I get the feeling that there’s some definite euphemism at play?” Elizabeth asked.

“I can’t possibly imagine,” Mary said with a glare at her friend.

“Ask her who the old friend was,” Nikandros recommended.

“Mary,” Elizabeth said brightly, delighted that she wasn’t the only one whose friends were in the business of betrayal, “with which old friend did you discuss the issue?”

“Really, Judas?” Mary asked, before answering sheepishly, “Henry Crawford.”

“ProblematicDick McRichWhiteBoyFace?” Elizabeth whooped. “I thought the two of you had more of a slightly hostile, definitely flirting thing going on. Since when do you have in-depth and fruitful discussions with him?”

“Yes, Mary, since when is that part of your interactions with him?” Nikandros asked idly.

“Ok, so first of all, fuck directly off, my boy,” Mary said to him, before facing Elizabeth. “Pretty recently. Turns out that most of the hostility was borne of some big misunderstanding, which we worked through.”

Nikandros made a noise of disgust, and turned to Elizabeth. “Excellent use of the Thingy McThingFace naming convention.”

“Thank you. Having finally met the guy instead of just hearing Mary complain about him, it seemed like a pretty suitable description. Anyway, Mary, you hadn’t finished your explanation. What happened after your little chat?”

“I taught classes all day, tried to entrap the students who have been writing super smutty RPF about me and Nikandros all year, met Caroline for tea, which turned out to be a front for an interrogation from Tristan, escaped with Evie, explained why I had blanked him et cetera, and now here we are.”

“RPF?” Elizabeth asked, unfamiliar with the acronym.

“Real Person Fiction,” Charlotte explained. “Like fanfiction of real people. Mary showed me some of it. It’s real smutty.”

“I do not want to know,” Elizabeth said firmly.”And I’m going to ignore the fact that you clearly left out a number of details in that explanation, but where is Evie? Now that you guys are both on the same page, I thought he’d be here as well.”

“Trade negotiations,” Mary said with a sigh. “He’s going to come by if things don’t end too late, but I’m not holding out hope. I’ll see him tomorrow.”

“Mary, my darling,” Elizabeth said, “this is not about you seeing or not seeing your boyfriend. This is about me being able to torment the two of you while you’re in the same place.”

“I just want to meet him in person,” Cynthia offered, and Nikandros agreed. “I’ve read the bulk of their message history, so I’m familiar with their dynamic, but I’ve never actually  _ met _ him.”

“And a desire to cause me torment is no part of that?” Mary enquired defeatedly of her friends. They shrugged. 

The evening progressed smoothly after that. Elizabeth was glad of Charlotte’s company. The fact that Mary had thought to invite her boded well for their getting along as flatmates. “So how’s everything going with the negotiations?” Charlotte asked later on.

“Surprisingly cruisey,” Elizabeth answered. “The media’s too busy frothing over those two hot civil servants they brought to actually look into the language of the agreements. Honestly, those guys need to be around every time there’s trade negotiations underway.”

“They’re winning the negotiations, aren’t they,” Nikandros asked.

“Oh yes. We are getting brutalised. And nobody cares, because there’s some hot attaches. It’s genius.” 

“You should wrangle yourself an introduction,” Charlotte suggested. “Have some fun with some hot man-meat while it’s available.”

“I’m tempted, don’t get me wrong,” Elizabeth said, “but I’m hardly privy to that sphere of things. It’s the introduction wrangling which is the problem. I’m in spin rather than handling. It’s the handlers who get to actually meet dignitaries.”

“You should have gone into handling,” Charlotte commented idly.

“Yes, but for the fact that the FCO civil servants are the most unbearably smug people in existence.”

At that point, the buzzer to the flat sounded. Elizabeth turned to her sister. “Expecting anyone?” she asked mildly, and with a definite undercurrent of brattiness. Mary blushed, made a number of exceedingly rude hand gestures which cast all manner of aspersions as to Elizabeth’s lineage and proclivities, and went to the intercom to let whomever it was into the building.

“That all seemed to carry meaning,” Cynthia noted, “but other than a ‘fuck off’, I didn’t get any of it.”

“That’s probably for the best,” Charlotte reassured her, continuing with a heavy note of reproach, “I have no idea where Mary learned that.”

“Mary learned it from Maria, who says she learned it from you,” Mary replied coolly, checking her reflection in the blacked out screen of her phone, and then looking momentarily disgusted in herself. 

Very soon after the dishes had been cleared away, as Mary was setting about preparing a pot of tea (she was continuing to grow in Elizabeth’s esteem of her as a potential roommate. It appeared that the uncomfortable goth phase and all the horrors that that had entailed had in fact only been a phase, which was reassuring), there came a knock at the apartment door, and all eyes in the room turned to Mary. Elizabeth decided not to shilly-shally, and turned her chair a full 180 degrees to face the entrance. Mary saw everyone watching expectantly, sighed heavily, and opened the door.

“He’s taller than I expected,” Cynthia whispered to Nikandros in a voice intentionally pitched to be heard by everyone in the room. Fitzwilliam, who had appeared to be leaning down to presumably kiss Mary, straightened slightly and looked past Mary to see the Greek Chorus arranged behind her, and looked slightly sheepish. Mary, not one to be cowed easily, rose up on her toes and kissed him on the cheek, before taking his hand and leading him inside. It was all nauseatingly adorable. Elizabeth’s phone buzzed with a notification, glancing at it momentarily, she could see that Charlotte had messaged her to say that if the two of them were not already intimate, she would be sorely surprised. 

That was, needless to say, however, not the phrasing she chose. 

_ Fuck me gently with a chainsaw! _

_ If the two of them are not already banging I will eat my fucking hat. _

Elizabeth was impressed by the speed at which Charlotte was apparently able to type, but forebore further comment, choosing instead to make Mary exceedingly uncomfortable, as was her job as older sister. “Evie! So nice of you to join us,” she beamed as Mary ran introductions, simultaneously signing a litany of exceedingly offensive invitations until Fitzwilliam seemed to notice what was going on, and laid a hand on hers. 

Elizabeth raised an eyebrow at this, as did Charlotte, who had been following along with Mary’s non-verbal tirade with avid interest. Cynthia looked like she was trying very hard not to squeal with excitement. Nikandros looked exceedingly smug. Finally Mary snapped. “Is there a reason you’re all being so weird?” she asked in exasperation. “You were all exceedingly clear about the fact that this wasn’t a surprise to any of you.” She suggested that Fitzwilliam have a seat, and returned to getting the tea ready.

When it became that nobody was voluneteering to answer Mary’s question, Elizabeth took one for the team. “Because it’s fun to finally watch you suffer as you are excoriated on the altar of everyone being way too interested in your relationships. I for one cannot wait until mama finds out.”

“Mama is not to be told. I have spent years convincing her that I am lost to spinsterhood, and I am not about to have those years wasted. Sorry Evie,” she said, turning to Fitzwilliam, “but I’d love it if we could actively neglect to inform my parents of this for as long as humanly possible.” 

Fitzwilliam looked momentarily uncomfortable. “Come now, what’s that look?” Elizabeth asked, knowing full well that she was intentionally being a shit, and having a rather good time of it. Her own love life was so barren that it was nice to have a source of vicarious amusement. Mary’s head snapped up just in time to see the end of the fleeting discomfort and her eyes narrowed as she fixed Elizabeth with a glare. “Don’t answer that,” she recommended, continuing to glare at her sister. It appeared that two could play at that game. The kettle finished boiling, and Mary added water to the teapot, before taking out an assortment of mismatched mugs, the result of years of collecting on the part of Elizabeth and Jane, and Anne Elliot, Jane’s flatmate before Elizabeth. She was apparently yet to unpack her tea set, matching china handed down to her by a spinster great-great-aunt, for whom she was named. Tea was then poured, a cake sliced, and in turn, Mary sat back down, having grabbed her desk chair from the living room where it currently resided, positioning herself next to Fitzwilliam, and sipping tea in a manner which could only be described as positively malevolent. 

Fitzwilliam looked over at his girlfriend, malevolently drinking tea, smiled fondly, and addressed Elizabeth. “How goes spin?”

“Remarkably easy, given the pasting I can only imagine we’re currently receiving. How go the negotiations?”

“Bloody horrific, even by post-Brexit trade deal standards.” Everyone at the table winced. Fitzwilliam continued, “There might be a few fires to put out tomorrow - the bad weather means no shirtless morning jogs by those two staffers, which means the media might actually deign to take a look at the current state of the negotiations.” 

Elizabeth groaned. “They couldn’t have just braved the mild sleet?”

Fitzwilliam shrugged. “If you ask me, it’s terribly unsporting to come here for trade negotiations, and then distract everyone with some hot men so that they can just thrash us with tarriffs.”

“It’s not very Cricket?” Nikandros suggested with the insouciant shitlordery of an Australian in England, talking about New Zealand.

“It’s not,” agreed Fitzwilliam.

The evening eventually drew to a close as first Mary’s friends, and then Charlotte left. Elizabeth left Mary and Fitzwilliam where they were cosied together on the sofa with Mary browsing job openings with engineering firms, and Fitzwilliam playing with her hair, and went to bed, feeling that she had pried enough into her sister’s affairs for the time being. If Fitzwilliam were still there in the morning, she planned to take his presence as an invitation to torment the two of them mercilessly.

Fitzwilliam was not still there in the morning. Elizabeth awoke around nine to see Mary already awake and unpacking things. Mary pointed her in the direction of tea, and Elizabeth set to checking the various news outlets to see if there was anything she needed to deal with. And there was. The FCO was being excoriated for how it was faring in the negotiations by a number of the slightly meatier news organisations, as well as some of the lighter tabloids which had run out of photographs of shirtless antipodeans to run. With a heavy sigh, Elizabeth finished her mug, and prepared herself for work on the weekend. 

She was not the only one who had seen what was going on and had thus opted to come in. Elizabeth made a note of which of the fresh interns had thought to come in and make themselves useful. At the end of every quarter, Mr Gardiner asked her opinion of the “fucking spineless infants” to see if she thought any of them “worth trying to rescue from their own mediocrity”, and having the werewithal to come into the office when the public were getting riled at the political system was the sort of thing which placed them in good stead.

As it was the weekend, Elizabeth was clad in some cropped black jeans and a colourful blouse which she tended to avoid wearing at work, because it was hard to terrify people into pulling their heads in when she was wearing bright and happy colours. This was not an issue until she was walking the corridors of Westminster on the way back from a trip for coffee, and she happened to run into Darcy, who for some inexplicable reason was loitering about the entrance. Elizabeth came to the swift and uncomfortable realisation that she found him even more attractive when he was dressed casually. She dismissed this issue with the fact that she merely found him aesthetically pleasing, and that that was the end of it.  

“Minister! I thought you had completed the move to the FCO. What brings you to these halls of a saturday?”

Darcy was saved from answering by a call of ‘FITZYYYYYYYYYYYYY’ in what was unmistakeably a New Zealander accent.

Elizabeth turned to look in the direction of the call, saw what she hadn’t even thought to dread, and turned back to Darcy to mouth ‘how could you’. It was too late for her to escape.

“Hi, I’m Adam,” the first ‘a’ was substituted for a short ‘i’, and the second replaced with a schwa, “and this is Pedro.” Or at least that was how Elizabeth heard the second name.

“Elizabeth. Adam and Pedro, was it?” Darcy choked slightly.

“Pietro,” was the next series of sounds uttered.

“Pietro?”

“Patrick,” Darcy finally elucidated. 

Elizabeth flushed in horror. “My apologies.”

“No worries,” Patrick said with a smile. “So how do you know Fitzy here?”

“I’m in media relations. Fitzy,” Elizabeth paused for a moment after using this nickname to see Darcy looking somewhere between uncomfortable and pained, “and I have crossed paths on a number of occasions. What brings you gentlemen here on your day off?”

“We played rugby with Fitzy when we were on exchange. Figured we could parley our old acquaintance into a backstage tour of the seat of power.”

“I’ll leave you gentlemen to it,” Elizabeth said with a smile, making her exit. She returned to the media division where she texted Charlotte to let her know that the Foreign Secretary was in bed with the attractive colonials, and that they were all done for.

_ You should see if there’s room in that bed for you, Lizzie ;) _

Elizabeth narrowly avoided snorting coffee out of her nose. 

_ It would appear that his nickname is ‘Fitzy’ _

_ I have never in my life seen anyone less suited to being a Fitzy. _

Things were wrapping up for the day (the media had been pacified, and the interns and underlings had done most of it, requiring only occasional guidance and phrasing advice from Elizabeth) when there was a knock at her open office door. Elizabeth glanced up to see who wanted her when she saw that it was the Patrick she had met earlier. She rearranged her limbs so that she was no longer sprawled sideways on her chair, her legs hanging off one of the arm rests, and tried to act as if she hadn’t been caught looking like an idiot. “Patrick, what a surprise! What can I do for you?”

“I asked Fitzy whether he knew if his hot friend was seeing anyone, and when he answered to the negative, I decided I might like to see if you were interested in meeting me for a drink.” He smiled with the self-assuredness of a cis male who knew that he was attractive. And he was. And one of the media liaisons being seen with a low level member of a foreign delegation was not the sort of thing which would be seen as untoward. And he really was distractingly attractive.

“Why not,” Elizabeth answered. “When did you have in mind?”

“I was thinking right now, if you didn’t have anything else planned.”

Elizabeth, at that moment did not. She took a moment to email Mary, and then followed him out of the building. The evening was pleasant: drinks at a bar Elizabeth had never heard of, which seemed to be decorated by all of the All Blacks merchandise in London; at which point they gave up on any vestiges of subtext and returned to the flat (which Mary had vacated per her request) for lots of (Elizabeth supposed shouldn’t have been surprisingly) athletic sex. 

By Sunday afternoon, when Mary returned, Elizabeth was seated at the kitchen table, reading up on the soon to be returning embassador to the USA, and trying very hard not to look smug.

“I take it you received some excellent dick last night?” Mary asked defeatedly as she dropped her bag in her room.

“You take it correctly.”

“Which one was it?”

“The hot one.”

“They’re both hot.”

“The one with the darker hair.”

“Solid.”

“How was your morning?”

“Went to brunch at Caroline’s. Darcy was there.”

“Oh yes?”

Mary made a noise of assent. “He made the grievous error of getting in the way of Caro and I complaining about opera.”

“Why do I get the feeling that you promptly disabused him of whatever horrific archaic notions he held?”

“Because you know me well, dear sister.” Elizabeth snorted. Mary at full rant was a sight to behold. And she was usually only roused thereto when the gender politics of music were invoked. “Are you likely to be seeing the hot Kiwi again before the talks end?”

Elizabeth shrugged expansively. “Maybe, I suppose it depends on our availabilities.”

“And I get the feeling that I should be ready to be sexiled at any time?”

“You feel correctly.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hit me up on tumblr for random extras, and occasional asks.   
> But mainly me whining :)


	14. In which two professional acquaintances happen to meet for coffee

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A brief interlude which didn't fit with the next chapter, but which does involve some exposition, and so could not be cut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, I know there's been a significant gap between uploads. 
> 
> Things are moving gradually, but they're moving.

Elizabeth was on her way to her favourite coffee shop, located a brief walk from Westminster, enjoying the sunlight on her walk, for it was a clear day, when a “Hello Ms Bennet,” caused her to jump halfway out of her skin. 

“Good god, Minister, you didn’t want to give me a warning before materialising?”

“That was my warning.” Darcy fell into step with her. 

“Still haven’t completed the move to the FCO?”

“Facilities services are being useless. The usual.”

“And you don’t need to be in a meeting right about now?”

Darcy gave Elizabeth a disparaging look. “I sent you my schedule this morning.”

“Well clearly I didn’t check it as diligently as I ought to have.”

“They do let me out of my office occasionally, you know.”

It was Elizabeth’s turn to give a disparaging look. “Being let out of the office occasionally is the direct cause  of literally every ministerial gaffe ever recorded. It’s unhealthy and irresponsible, and your staffers should know better. Evie should certainly know better than to let you out unsupervised.

“Speaking of Evie,” Darcy changed the subject, “I met your younger sister yesterday.”

“Which one?” Elizabeth asked out of reflex, so used to needing to ask for clarification that she forgot she already knew the answer.

“Mary,” they said in unison.

“I have three younger sisters,” Elizabeth explained. “I usually need to narrow down which one people are talking about.”

“Well I met Mary. She’s…” Darcy seemed to be looking for the correct descriptor.

“Unnecessarily hardcore?” Elizabeth offered.

“Intense,” Darcy concluded grimly.

“That’s certainly one interpretation open to you,” Elizabeth conceded. “I heard that she disagreed with your opinions with regard to music.”

Darcy chuckled darkly. “I suppose in retrospect that when Evie, Caro, and Jane all just leaned back in the manner of ‘nope, not touching this’ right as Mary drew breath, that was a warning sign.”

“That was indeed a warning sign,” Elizabeth confirmed.

“I had mentioned that I had rather enjoyed  the LSO’s performance of The Damnation of Faust, when she--”

“Berlioz or Gounoud?”

Darcy shrugged. “One of them? She agreed that it was an excellent piece, but that it still suffered from most of the pitfalls of traditional opera, I said surely no such pitfalls existed,” Elizabeth winced in sympathy, Darcy raised his eyebrows, “and then she launched into a five minute tirade about the influence of the patriarchy on western classical music which honestly felt practiced.”

“Mary has,” Elizabeth paused for effect as she entered the coffee shop and held the door open for Darcy, “strong feeling about such things.”

“I noticed,” Darcy muttered, indicating that Elizabeth should take a place in the queue ahead of him.

“And you were right. It was practiced.” She placed a hand on his arm and gave a sympathetic look. “She’s generally harmless.”

“Nobody whom Tristan finds as much a delight as that is truly harmless.”

“That’s not what I said,” Elizabeth  pointed out.

“Touche,” Darcy conceded. When they had their coffees and were walking back to Westminster, Darcy enquired “Do you know who’s being sent along on crisis watch when I return to the constituency in a couple of weeks?”

“I wasn’t aware that you had an extended visit planned,” Elizabeth admitted.

“Do you even read the emails I send you?” Darcy enquired with a wry smile.

“I think it’s rapidly becoming clear that I read them only occasionally, and usually when I just have nothing better to do.”

“Well Mr Gardiner blew in like the foul stench of Acheron, and informed me that I was to have a babysitter in case, and I’m quoting directly here, ‘Something happens outside of your fcking backwater and some limp-pricked journalistic arse-wipe is  stupid enough to think that anyone is interested in seeing your woefully uninformed opinion reported.’ All references to ‘you’ in that tirade of course refer to me.”

“Thanks for clearing that up,” Elizabeth said acidly. It did sound like the sort of thing Mr Gardiner might say. “I’ll check in with him and let you know.”

“Thanks,” Darcy smiled, that dimple of his reappearing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hit me up on tumblr, babes.


	15. In which there is a scene involving a lake.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> LAKE SCENE, BITCHES!!!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As ever, I apologise for the delay. I also apologise if the pacing seems weird. When I finish this fic and do final edits, I'll probably pad some things out. Who knows.
> 
> But also, #AndYourParents #AreTheyWell

“Edward?” Elizabeth knocked on the open door to his office and entered when his eyes flicked up to her and then flicked back down to whatever he was reading. She closed the door behind her and took a seat.

In due time, Mr Gardiner closed the folder he was reading from and smiled at her. “What brings you to my office, Lizzie?”

“I happened to run into the Foreign Sec this morning,” Elizabeth ignored the noise of disgust and eye roll which was Mr Gardiner’s response to any mention of any politician, “and he asked if I knew who had been assigned to babysit his constituency visit.”

Mr Gardiner snorted. “I forgot that I had threatened a babysitter.” He ran a hand over his face and regarded Elizabeth for a while. “That’s the week I’m taking the wife to Europe, so you are going to be running the show. Surprise. Congratulations.” His tone did not waver one iota. “I suppose you could run the show remotely.”

“Are there not any other people capable of babysitting a cabinet minister?”

Mr Gardiner just looked at her. “None whom you would trust should anything truly juicy break. Are you testing me? Is this a prelude to the mch threatened retirement which the smart money says you’re never going to take?”

“Heavens no. I think it’ll be a dull week, and that it would do you good to get out of the office. I also don’t trust the advisor masquerading as an assistant. He’s far too clever.” Mr Gardiner paused. “Wasn’t he the one nosing around young Mary?”

“They’re now dating,” Elizabeth informed him, opening the calendar on her phone. “So when’s this visit?”

“Starts the ----th.”

“Well then you won’t need to worry about the far too clever advisor, he’s going to be at a wedding in Scotland with Mary.”

Mr Gardiner shrugged. “You’re still going. Stop trying to get out of paid travel. Enjoy the junket. The Lakes District is lovely this time of year.”

Elizabeth nodded and stood, returning to her own office, and dialling Darcy.

“Ms Bennet.”

“Darcy. Apparently I have been designated your professional babysitter.”

“Thank yo get getting back to me. I’ll send through my travel details for whatever underling books your travel.”

“Smashing. Good afternoon, Minister.”

“Good afternoon.”

Elizabeth dashed off a message to Charlotte cancelling their planned brunch the weekend she was now to be away. And ignored the ludicrous suggestions with which Charlotte replied. She hardly expected Darcy to ‘tear [her] shirt off with his teeth’, especially since she wouldn’t actually be interacting with him. She was just going to be nearby on the off chance that the Crimean war recommenced or some other disaster.

In the week which proceeded her trip, Elizabeth realised that she had forgotten what it was like sharing an apartment with a sister who made her own formalwear. First there was the meltdown because she had ‘nothing to wear’, then there was the taking apart of the top half of a dress because ‘the line of the shoulder wasn’t falling right’, and then there was the resulting carnage. Threads everywhere. So many threads that she didn’t even notice them after a point, until Darcy happened to pick one off of her arm one morning when she ran into him. And then, just as she was leaving, conversational niceties out of the way, he stopped her to pull another thread out of her hair where it had somehow become tangled.

By the time Mary had left, and Elizabeth had finished with work (and faffing about instead of packing) Elizabeth barely had time to go over everything she had packed with a lint roller (somehow there were threads on _everything_ ) before hurrying to catch the train. She spent the train journey remotely holding down the fort, and was not concentrating on anything else. She had earphones in with no sound in order to deaden some of the ambient noise. As a result, she didn’t notice that Darcy was trying to get her attention until she received an email from him which contained no text, just a subject line in all caps, exhorting her to look up.

Elizabeth obliged, taking out her earphones with deliberate lingering eye contact. “Yes?” she asked.

“We get off the train in about two minutes,” Darcy said, choosing to ignore the heavy note of insolence which had inhabited her tone. Elizabeth stowed her laptop and stretched. When it came time to exit the train, Darcy solicitously took charge of her baf, which was highly unexpected, but not in and of itself remarkable. “So where have they put you up on this jaunt?” Darcy asked as Elizabeth set about ordering an uber.

“An intern mentioned something about some inn in Lambton.”

“The Lambton Inn?” Darcy asked in disbelief, a touch of disdain so strong that it was almost Northern almost audible in his voice.

“Sounds plausible,” Elizabeth shrugged.

“Christ,” Darcy breathed. The blasphemy definitely sounded Northern.

“What?” Elizabeth asked.

“That place hasn’t been renovated in living memory. And not in the cool heritage way. It’s…” Darcy looked perplexed. “I’m trying to think of a tactful description, but the best I can come up with is ‘shithole’. It’s a shithole.”

“It cannot possibly be that bad,” Elizabeth said brightly as her uber arrived.

Darcy just shook his head and tried not to look smug. It was, as it turned out, entirely that bad. Elizabeth dialed Darcy. “This is Fitz.”

“You motherfucker, I thought you were joking,” she hissed from the dank hovel purporting to be her room.

“You’re on speaker, and I rarely joke.”

“And with whom am I on speaker, given that if it was just you, you wouldn’t mention it?”

“My sister, Georgiana. Say hello, Georgie.”

“Hi! You must be Lizzie.”

“Must I be?” Elizabeth asked, intrigued.

“Evie mentioned you. You’re his girlfriend’s older sister, aren’t you.”

“Indeed I am.”

“Elizabeth, we’ll be out the front in about fifteen minutes, you can stay in one of the guest rooms,” Darcy cut in.

Elizabeth weighed her options. “Ordinarily, I would refuse because that’s wildly unprofessional and a whole slew of other things, but I’m pretty sure this place doesn’t even have the advertisedwifi, so I’ll take you up on the offer. Thanks.”

“It’s no problem,” both Darcy and Georgiana said at once, before giggling. He might have rarely joked, but he was not above a laugh with his little sister. Elizabeth zipped her suitcase back up, and went down to the lobby to wait.

Pemberley at night was beautiful. The moon lit up the trees, stars twinkles in the lake, and the soft light from the lit rooms spilled out onto the front approach. Georgiana did not, however, drive in a manner conducive to appreciating this beauty. Ms Darcy had evidently taken some stunt driving courses, because she was terribly enamoured of handbrake turns at sixty miles an hour on roads which were barely more than tracks. Elizabeth had noticed that Darcy was sitting in the passenger seat, gripping the handle like her mother had when she was learning to drive, and had been very ready to think all manner of horrible things about him not trusting female drivers. Right up until Georgiana checked that she was clicked in, then floored the car in reverse, and sprung out of the inn’s carpark in the first handbrake turn of the evening, where Elizabeth had been expecting a gentle three point turn. Instinctively, she reached for the ceiling handle and gripped the seat with her other hand.

When finally they arrived, Elizabeth’s heart rate through the roof, Georgiana hopped from the driver’s seat and scampered across the gravel approach to the house, leaving Elizabeth to exhale heavily and work to relax her hand enough to let go of the handle.

“Sorry about that,” Darcy said, looking slightly pale as he opened her door and offered her a hand down. “I would have texted you a warning, but as usual, I was too busy clinging on for dear life.”

Elizabeth slumped against the side of the four wheel drive and waited for her pulse to return to normal. “Where did she learn to drive like that? The Top Gear school of motoring?”

“Our aunt Matilda - Evie and Tristan’s mother - runs hunting trips. Georgie spent a few seasons with her after she got her license, and was led astray. Mats was a rally driver for a period of her youth and never truly left those days behind.”

“That was fucking terrifying,” Elizabeth said, straightening and walking to the boot, where she slapped away Darcy’s attempts to take her bag and followed him inside.

They were met at the door by Georgiana and an elderly woman who introduced herself as ‘Mrs Reynolds’. “Your guest,” the word was said in the deeply disapproving tone of an authority figure speaking in a northern accent, “will have to take the mistress’ bedroom, as it’s the only one that was cleaned recently. Good evening.” She turned on her heel and disappeared through a nearby doorway.

“Was she worried you had driven into a tree?” Darcy asked Georgiana.

Georgiana shrugged. “When we were half an hour late, she obviously started expecting the worst. Go drop off your things, and I’ll make some tea. Elizabeth, you’re not allergic to anything?”

“No,” Elizabeth said.

“Bring your devices and I’ll get you on the wifi.”

“Thanks.”

“Fitz will show you where you’re staying,” Georgiana headed to what looked like a servant’s stair, and went down it.

“Shall we?” asked Darcy as Elizabeth shouldered her bag once more.

“Lead on,” Elizabeth instructed, following him to what was clearly the family quarters.

“You’re in here,” he said, holding a door open for her. “Georgie uses the closets for her performance gowns, so I can’t speak to whether there will be any space left.”

Elizabeth put down her bag and regarded the room, which was roughly the size of her entire apartment. “What does she play?” she asked.

“She’s got a degree in harpsichord, but she’s amazing at just about anything with a keyboard.” Sarcy looked for all the world like a proud older brother extolling his sister’s skills. It was almost endearing. “That door,” he pointed at a door next to the bed, “connects to my room. Fun feature held over from when the place was built. Just…. Be aware.”

“Noted,”Elizabeth said, trying and barely managing to suppress a grin at how evidently uncomfortable he was. She gathered together her laptop, work mobile, and personal mobile, and walked towards the door. “Tea,” she said brightly. Darcy nodded and led her down the corridor.

“When it’s just us at home we tend to do most of our cooking and socialising in the old servant’s quarters. So much easier to maintain, and indefinitely less difficult to keep clean.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Elizabeth said wryly, having absolutely no opinion on, or experience in the matter.

Darcy held open another door, and Elizabeth entered a large kitchen area which overlooked a herb garden and sizeable vegetable patch. “There you are!” Georgiana exclaimed. “I was starting to wonder what could be taking that long.” She indicated that they should take a seat at the table, which was already laid out with tea and what appeared to be chocolate chip cookies.

Darcy immediately took one, bit into it, and looked at his sister with reproach. “They’re chewy,” he observed.

“Yes,” Georgiana replied, “as they should be.”

“No. No cookie should ever be chewy. They should be crisp and rigid. Not…” he cast about for a correct descriptor. “Flaccid.”

“FLACCID!?” Georgiana cried, pouring herself tea. “Fitzwilliam, you wound me.”

Darcy shrugged. “I make no apologies for the fact that I’m correct.”

Georgiana turned to Elizabeth. “Say, Eliza,”

“Lizzie,” Elizabeth and Darcy said at the same time. Elizabeth raised her eyebrows at Darcy, who shrugged in response.

“Caro only ever refers to you as ‘Eliza’,” Georgiana said, slightly off-balance.

“I assume that’s a wilful decision on her part,” Elizabeth explained.

“Right then. Lizzie,” reattempted Georgiana, “What are your thoughts on this?”

“I’m afraid I have to agree with your brother on this.”

“No!”

“Alas yes. My immediately younger sister has very firm feelings on the matter, which she proceeded to force upon me.”

Georgiana rolled her eyes and drank some tea. “Say, Fitz, will you be doing the full local boy done good while you’re here?”

“Do you mean will I wear sweaters and tweed, and let a bit of colour into my vowels when I’m talking to my constituents?” he asked, accent gradually transitioning away from RP, and towards an inflection which spoke of windswept moors, rugged landscapes, (rugged men) and an affinity for working with livestock. Elizabeth found it unexpectedly attractive. Or maybe it was just the prospect of seeing him in a sweater again.

It was not just that.

The next morning, when Elizabeth made her way down to the kitchen, she was met by Darcy and Georgiana singing along to the radio as they made breakfast.

“Good morning, Georgiana,” Elizabeth froze then, unsure of how she was meant to be addressing Darcy.

“I really think we’ve reached the point in our acquaintance when you can call me Fitz,” he commented, “good morning, Elizabeth.”

“Morning, Fitz,” she said, before grimacing. “It feels unprofessional.”

“You’re literally staying at his house. You left ‘professional’ behind a while ago,” Georgiana offered.

“Good point,” Elizabeth conceded. “Can I help with anything?”

“You take over for me, I’ll grab some plates,” Georgiana instructed. “Fitz, check on the toast. Either I’m having a stroke, or it’s burning.”

“Yes, chef,” Darcy muttered with a grin.

“I heard that, Fitz.”

“That was the intention.”

Breakfast was an informal affair. Georgiana spent most of the time refining Darcy’s plans for the day. It appeared that there was at least some truth to the story that she had propelled him into politics. After breakfast, when Georgiana went to ready the Land Rover, and Elizabeth readied herself for a lazy day of exploring the grounds and periodically checking twitter, she passed Darcy in the hallway outside their rooms as he tugged on a sweater. “Why isn’t Georgiana in politics?” Elizabeth asked. “She seems better at it than you.”

Darcy smiled. “She has no interest. She just enjoys dabbling occasionally.”

“And you, what? Wanted a change from corporate takeovers or whatever it is you did during your lawyering days?”

“Patent fraud,” Darcy said. “And yes, I wanted a change. Georgiana suggested politics. I took a swing. I didn’t expect it would be this successful.”

“That’s a lie,” Elizabeth commented.

“It sure is, but didn’t it sound convincing?” Darcy smirked and sauntered down the hallway.

Elizabeth spent the morning exploring the house. After a quick lunch (Georgiana had assured her that the fridge contained everything she could possibly want to put into a sandwich), she went outside. The weather was beautiful, and the grounds even more so.

And then the weather wasn’t beautiful. It was instead absolutely bucketing with rain.Elizabeth was near a dense copse of trees, so she ran to them with the intent of waiting it out. She had been there a bit under an hour (the grounds were still beautiful when it was raining), when she got bored and started relaying the farce of her current situation to Charlotte over voicemail, because for whatever reason, Charlotte wasn’t picking up her phone.

“Elizabeth!” Darcy was on a horse. This was a surprise.

“I’ll finish the story later,” she said, ending the call.

“What are you doing out in this weather?” Darcy asked.

Elizabeth replied with the best answer she had ever encountered to a clearly unnecessary ‘what are you doing’ question, courtesy of the only adaptation of Anne of Green Gables she had ever liked. “Fishing for lake trout.”

Darcy, his hair plastered over his forehead by the rain, raised an eyebrow. “The lake is about half a mile that way,” he pointed.

Elizabeth gave him a withering look. “I was clearly going for a walk when the rain hit, at which point I went for the nearest cluster of trees for cover, not that they provided any meaningful protection, and I was waiting it out.”

“Without anything warmer than a t-shirt?”

“I hadn’t planned to be rained on.”

Darcy took a deep breath and looked to be forcing down a number of inadvisable reactions. He then dismounted and stalked towards her, horse in tow. Elizabeth stepped back. Darcy stopped. “Yo’re not afraid of horses, are you?” he asked incredulously.

“No,” Elizabeth said unconvincingly after a lengthy pause.

“You do understand that horses are flight animals and life in a perpetual state of being mildly scared by everything they see?” Darcy enquired, looking like he was struggling not to laugh.

“Objectively, yes,” Elizabeth said, crossing her arms and trying to look anything other than waterlogged. “And yet, they do not seem to like me, and I have never in my life had a good horse-adjacent experience.” Darcy dropped the reins, and the horse gave Elizabeth a _look_. Elizabeth looked alarmed. “Your horse is looking at me funny.”

“You’re looking at my horse funny,” Darcy countered, taking off his waterproof jacket and sweater, and then handing the sweater to Elizabeth and putting the jacket back on.

“What are you doing?” Elizabeth asked.

“You look halfway to hypothermia.”

Elizabeth sniffed the sweater. “Wool?”

“Yes, so it’ll stay warm even though you’re soaked. And did you literally just sniff it?”

“You can tell natural fibres apart by smell,” Elizabeth countered primly, putting on the sweater. “And thanks.”

“Shall we return to the house? The rain is not going to clear for a while.”

“I suppose that’s probably advisable,” Elizabeth manoeuvred herself to the side of Darcy which was furthest from his horse. The horse continued to give her a _look_.

It was a fifteen minute walk to the stables, and Elizabeth was thankful for the borrowed sweater. It was warm. When they reached the stables, Elizabeth hung back. Darcy looked back at her, sighed defeatedly, and put his horse in a stall. He then returned to where she was standing, huddled under the eaves. “Why don’t you come in where it’s dry?” he asked.

“Horses.”

Darcy shepherded her in with a hand at the small of her back, and left her at the door, grabbing a brush and rubbing down his horse, all the while talking to Elizabeth in the sort of low, soothing tone one used with an easily startled animal. When he was done, he emerged from the stall and stood next to Elizabeth. “You never struck me as the sort of person who would be irrationally scared of things.”

“You didn’t strike me as the sort who regularly gallivanted about on a horse, but here we are.”

Darcy snorted, and looked down at her. “Do you want to pat the horse?”

“God no. There is nothing I want less.”

“Do you want to meet the cats?”

“Ordinarily yes, but right now I am freezing. Can we please raincheck cats for when I’m not soaked?”

“Of course. Let’s go.” He put an arm around her shoulders and they ventured back out into the rain.

Five minutes later, Elizabeth found herself slogging through long grass as they cut past the lake on a shortcut to the house. “My feet are soaked,” she commented.

“Your feet were already soaked,” Darcy retorted with the sort of manic grin that only ill-advised outdoors activities could bring on. “We tend to let the grass get a bit longer in the summer. The lush greenery photographs well.”

“You are a crazed pastoralist,” Elizabeth grumbled.

“As may be,” Darcy said, slipping slightly in the wet grass, before recovering his footing, “but apart from the cold and the wet, aren’t you having fun tramping about the place?”

“Fun is arbitrary. And up for interpretation,” Elizabeth said, eyes straight ahead, as she marched through grass almost up to her knees. From behind her, she heard a muffled ‘fuck’, followed by a splash. She turned to see Darcy’s head poking above the surface of the lake. “Did you just fall into the lake?”

“Clearly,” Darcy said, looking torn between irritation and laughter.

“Well you should get out of the lake.”

“Thanks,” he said acidly, clambering up the muddy bank in a most undignified manner. When finally he stood, he sighed and took off the waterproof jacket.

“Are you trying to freeze to death?” Elizabeth asked.

“It’s hardly keeping anything out now,” Darcy pointed out. “And it’s full of lake.”

His shirt was plastered to his chest. And courtesy of the fact that it was white, transparent. Elizabeth did her best to keep her staring to a minimum. Or at least not too overt. She also worked very hard not to giggle.

They were met at the front door by a very unimpressed looking Georgiana. “Honestly. The two of you should both know better. Shoes off. Now.” They dutifully removed their shoes. “Now go and have a shower.”

Elizabeth took a step towards the stairs and slipped slightly in her wet socks. Darcy caught her before she could hit the floor. Georgiana rolled her eyes. “We’ll talk later,” she said menacingly to Darcy.

“Someone’s in trouble,” Elizabeth sniggered, setting off for the stairs in a much more sedate and stable manner.

They arrived at the bathroom with changes of clothing at the same time. “After you,” Darcy said solicitously.

“No, after you. You fell into a dodgy looking pond.”

“I fell into a moderately suspect lake, thank you very much.”

“Either way, you need this more than I do.”

Darcy looked like he was about to protest, but thought better of it. He trudged past her and clsoed the door, then opened it again and handed her a towel. “You may as well not be soaking in the interim.”

Elizabeth took the towel with great solemnity, prompting Darcy to raise an eyebrow, roll his eyes, and close the door again. Elizabeth had not failed to notice that he had removed his shirt before thinking to hand her a towel. She was impressed. Apparently he found time to work out. This wasn’t a total shock - he filled out a suit exceedingly well, and after he had managed to extricate himself from the lake, his jeans had been clinging quite indecently to an exceptional pair of legs.

Dinner was punctuated by a number of disapproving glares from Georgiana, but was otherwise uneventful. Elizabeth, detecting that perhaps she wanted to have a private chat, left them alone afterwards.

She was awakened around three a.m. by her phone’s What’s App call notification. She missed the first call. Luckily it started ringing immediately again. Blindly she swiped at her phone until she managed to answer it. “What.”

“Lizzie. Thank god.” It was Patrick the civil servant from New Zealand.

“Patrick. It’s…” she checked the time on her phone screen, and squinted at the light. “It’s three in the fucking morning.”

“You’ll thank me. Go on twitter. Right now. BBC Breaking.”

Elizabeth was still practically asleep, but her system was starting to flood with adrenaline. Still squinting, she put her phone on speaker, and opened twitter. Suddenly she was wide awake. “Oh god.” She got out of bed and started hammering on the door connecting her room to Darcy’s.

“Oh yes. You’re welcome. Shoot me a message when you’re done sorting this out.”

“Thanks Patrick. I owe you one.”

“Good luck, Lizzie.”

“Thanks." It probably would have been faster to go and knock on the main door to the room, but Elizabeth wasn't in the mood for navigating strange dark corridors, so she kept banging on the door. Eventually there came a garbled groan. "Wake up, Fitz, this is serious!" Elizabeth called through the door, seriously considering going in there and waking him up herself when the door swung open. Elizabeth froze, choked slightly, went faintly pink, and snapped her eyes up to Darcy's face. It appeared that he slept naked.

"Elizabeth, what's wrong? Are your family alright?"

Elizabeth stammered and kept her eyes firmly on his face. "They're fine," she forced out.

"You look like you're about to faint," Darcy said, putting his hands on her upper arms, as if worried she might collapse imminently. "What's happened?"

Elizabeth, words having failed her, flicked her eyes down momentarily and then back up. 

It was then Darcy's turn to freeze. "And your parents, are they well?" he asked somewhat weakly, as if he were operating on autopilot, while he looked more and more horrified with each passing second. Elizabeth nodded silently. "Excuse me," Darcy said, letting go of her and closing the door again.

Elizabeth stared at the closed door for a while, before going back to her bed and opening her laptop, because it had a far more user friendly screen than her phone. Thankfully everyone was still asleep, so there was limited commentary.

She started frantically scribbling notes, she wasn't sure of what, it just seemed like the right thing to do. There came a knock on the adjoining door. "I think we both know it's open," she said.

Darcy appeared, clad in a pair of loose trackpants which were hanging considerably lower than one might have expected from a public school educated member of Her Majesty's cabinet, and a thin sweater which has clearly been the first thing to hand. He looked somewhere between sheepish and horrified. "What's going on?"

Elizabeth handed him her laptop, and he sat heavily on the bed as he started reading. "Oh god."

"Good thing I was sent to babysit you," she commented.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hit me up in the comments. And on tumblr. Or IRL, for those of y'all who know me.
> 
> Chapter 8 of Conversations corresponds to this chapter.


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